Unity
by Dewyn
Summary: In which a powerless Izuku Midoriya finds a sword older than the world. Currently being processed into an original work.
1. Sword Beneath Stone

**Quick note: I'm going to be using the Western naming style (as well as Gaelic rather than Japanese) in Izuku's home country, as it's much closer to Eire and Alba than Japan. Names are preserved for the sake of it being a fanwork, don't hurt me.**

* * *

**chapter one: sword beneath stone**

Izuku Midoriya breathed in his first lungful of musty cavern air, cool and damp and carrying with it the cloying aroma of moist earth.

Today was his sixteenth birthday, the day when - in his village, at least - a boy became a man. Not that he felt much like a man, standing there in the cave's mouth with nothing more than a rusty short sword and a padded leather vest to protect him from whatever lay within, but he wasn't going to back out. If he did, he'd be exiled; a boy had refused to enter the cave three years prior, during a spate of livestock disappearances, and promptly been sent away from the village - though, judging from the fate of the next boy to enter the cave, his choice of exile was most likely the smarter one.

He wouldn't pretend that he wasn't scared. Anyone undergoing the coming-of-age trial (a three-day journey into the depths) was required to do so within their own means, and his class - the peasant class - more often than not failed to reemerge from the cave. Few rations, poor equipment and lack of training were no doubt a factor in this; the sons of merchants, with full armour, full bags and newly forged weapons, rarely fell prey to the cavern.

The short sword in his hand was his father's, and it served as a reminder of why exactly he'd chosen to risk his life rather than simply leave the village. Hisashi was ill, and rumor had it that he'd been cursed by a Plaguebringer (a mage whose dark magic arts spread from person to person, devouring their very essence), leaving only his son Izuku and his wife Inko to care for him and the farm he'd painstakingly cultivated for a decade. Izuku couldn't leave his parents alone.

The odds were high that he would anyway, but at least it wouldn't be by his own cowardice.

As he stepped into the cave, escorted by the jeers of the other boys and the grave, silent stares of the Túschic village elders, he had to admit to himself that there was another reason he'd chosen to risk his life in this cave rather than strike out on his own.

He had no affinities.

The other villagers, even his parents, all possessed some affinity or other. People commonly held affinities for two schools of magic and one school of weaponry, and although nobody in his village was a skilled magic user or gifted in the weapon arts, having any affinity was better than having none at all. Izuku had tried to practice the necessary techniques for both magic and weapon arts and met with moderate success - but when he attempted to actually perform magic, the limited mana he managed to perceive and grasp simply wouldn't do anything, and when he tried weapon arts, his life force failed to manifest in any form whatsoever, succeeding only in fatiguing him. He simply _couldn't. _

It was possible for people to learn magic they lacked an affinity for, but from what he'd heard, it took years he didn't have, and those who managed to do so were typically accomplished mages with solid grasps on the intricacies of magic rather than teenage farm boys.

_Clack. Clack._

The metal plates grafted to the soles of his leather work boots clashed against the weathered stone of the cavern floor, and the sound echoed around him until all he could hear was the din of rock and iron.

Deeper, deeper into the cavern. He could still see the mouth behind him, still see the others watching. He doubted any of them expected him to come back; he'd spent his whole life being treated like a dog for one reason or another. When it wasn't accusations of being a Plaguebringer himself - a ridiculous notion, for all children found to have an affinity for plague magic were summarily executed, and Izuku's affinities had been appraised years prior - it was taunts of "useless" or "worthless" and ostracization worthy of a Necromancer. To the other village children, how strong your affinities were was a measure of how _cool_ you were, and having none meant that Izuku resided at the very bottom of the social totem pole.

Somewhere deep in his heart, he resented this, resented their narrow-minded refusal to see anything except _power_, but there were more important things to worry about. Each day, he went out to work the fields alongside his mother, doing his best to take up his father's share of the work while the man himself wasted away in his bed. He went to sleep aching each night and woke up aching each morning, but the way his body hurt was nothing compared to the pain of _knowing_ his father wasn't getting any better.

No matter how hard he tried to pretend, his was not a happy existence.

He resented himself as well, for that dim, flickering hope in the back of his mind, for the little voice that suggested all-too-happily that he might meet his end in this hole. Izuku didn't _want _to die, but he knew that if death came for him, he would not run.

As he rounded the first turn in the cave, the floor began to slope gently downwards, and the light of the sun penetrated no further into the inky blackness ahead. With a grunt, Izuku knelt, untying the torch he'd attached to his satchel and striking his tinderbox over it until it caught. His father, he knew, possessed enough of an affinity for fire magic to light torches and small fires on his own, but it was something Izuku hadn't seen since childhood, and he himself lacked this gift.

Returning to his feet, he continued deeper into the cave, its walls glimmering wetly in the flickering orange torchlight. It was, for the most part, not topographically dangerous, but he knew it connected to other cave systems across the continent, including - distantly - the Críoch, known as the deepest, most dangerous caverns in the world and supposedly the heart of every cave system in the country of Áit Dearmadh.

The floor soon evened out again, becoming softer; his footfalls fell silent, softened by the spongy cushion of runoff soil that covered the stone here. Here and there, deep cracks in the earth above let in fleeting beams of dusty sunlight, and fronds of some fern sprouted where they fell.

It was, Izuku reflected with a grimace, truly amazing how hardy life was.

He shortly came upon a water-carved "room" of sorts, and seeing no signs of other life - neither the unfortunate remains of his predecessors nor more traditional evidence such as footprints or waste - he decided he'd rest here for the time being. The heavy scent of growing things would mask his own from the creatures that lived further in; most if not all of them were blind, so he was free to light up the cave as much as he pleased, but they possessed acute senses of smell and hearing. When on the move, the biggest attractor was the rhythmic clanking of his boots, but when he remained stationary, he was more likely to be detected by smell, so setting up camp in particularly pungent areas would be necessary. Actually finding those areas was the least of his worries - between the cavern's fungi, sulphur deposits and the inevitable slew of corpses he'd find, he doubted there was a shortage of foul scents down here.

If there was one good thing about having no affinities, it was that he'd learned to rely on his own intelligence and physical ability. While the other boys focused on reemerging from the cave as heroes, to be lauded by their peers and elders, Izuku focused on learning the cave itself, studying relentlessly to ensure his own survival.

_It's not as if I'll be praised for coming out alive,_ he reasoned. _Instead of going after the head of a monster or something, it's best to get by as smartly as possible so I can go home._

Sheltering in a small, u-shaped bend to the left of the sunlit chamber, Izuku slid his treasured notebook from his satchel. He'd debated briefly when packing on whether or not it was worth the valuable bag space, but eventually he reasoned that the knowledge it contained was just as valuable a tool for his survival as the sword at his waist. The book itself was a leather-bound volume he'd saved up for and purchased at the next town over; the town had its own library, and he'd spent quite some time researching the things he might find in this cave, from hostile life to environmental hazards. Upon returning to his village, Izuku had filled up another several pages with what information he could wheedle out of the few people who'd willingly speak with him - information on those who'd failed the trial, information on the trial itself, the rumors surrounding it. The result was a rudimentary guide on what he could expect in the days to come, as well as how to deal with it.

Leafing through the pages, he paused at one titled _Surface Layer_. Up until now, he'd been in this layer of the caverns, where if he were to burrow through the wall in a straight line, he'd eventually emerge from a hillside above sea level. The next layer was the first upper layer, where some relatively non-threatening organisms unique to the caves lived. He'd have been fine simply camping out in this chamber for a couple of days, sneaking berries from the woods just outside the mouth of the cave when nobody was around, but the trial mandated that he venture into at least the middle layer and bring back some proof that he'd done so.

According to what he'd read about multilayered cavern systems, the middle layer represented the last layer that an adventurer without a party could safely explore. This wasn't to say _any_ adventurer could tackle it, but rather that even a highly skilled one wouldn't stand a chance by themselves in the lower layers. He wasn't required to explore the middle layer in any capacity, so his task was actually "reach the end of the upper layers", whereupon he could grab something from the entrance of the middle layer before heading back up.

_Upper Layer 1, _he read, in his own careful handwriting. Scanning the page, he located what he'd been searching for: _Ecology._

_First upper layer is populated mostly by creatures smaller than one's forearm. True "monsters" will occasionally make their way up from the second upper layer to find prey, but for the most part, the first upper layer is safe._

Following was a detailed sketch of something resembling a butter clam, immediately preceding a drawing of a rat with a second set of legs sprouting from the tops of the first and reaching for the sky above. Grotesque as they were, neither was particularly threatening, and he turned his attention to the second upper layer, where the first true threats would make their appearance. Considering the nonzero possibility of one of these wandering up to hunt eight-legged rats, he figured it would be wise to read up sooner rather than later.

_Upper Layer 2_'s section on _Ecology_ began with the ubiquitous giant spider, a monster he wasn't particularly afraid of. Their venom was nasty, but due to the limited range of their fangs, a wary target was able to keep out of striking range with ease. Izuku had actually killed a few of these himself during harvest season as they wandered through the fields in search of prey, ripping them in two with a well-aimed scythe strike or pinning their fat bodies with the tines of a pitchfork before finishing them off with his father's shortsword. He'd actually come to look forward to these encounters, for they gave him a chance to feel as if the weapon arts techniques he'd practiced hadn't gone completely to waste. Even if he was unable to get his life force to manifest, simply being able to circulate that energy throughout his body and weapon heightened his senses and deepened the connection between mind and body, giving him an edge against someone or some_thing_ unable to use the technique.

The other monsters in the second upper layer were endemic to the caverns, but still relatively mundane: a blind, two-meter snake that navigated by smell and touch; a pale, eyeless bat that clamped onto the heads of echolocated prey to drink the blood that ran through their veins; centipedes that would detect mammals' body heat and drop on their unfortunate quarry to sink their paralyzing fangs into some vital point. The first two didn't particularly bother him, as their size and method of movement would alert him to their presence, but he found the last terrifying, and he'd actually brought along two things to protect himself.

The first was a straw hat. It wouldn't protect him like a helmet, but if a centipede were to fall on his head, it would be a simple matter to throw down the hat and kill the bug. The second was, like his shoes, of his own modification - he'd cut off the buttoned collar of one of his father's shirts and sewn on several layers of leather strips to create a rudimentary neck-guard.

Speaking of his shoes, the metal soles had been intended to protect his feet from protruding rock and help him keep his footing on slippery terrain (two things that the leather soles beneath the metal hadn't done), but the noise of his footsteps was proving to be more than a little irritating, not to mention dangerous. _There was never a way for me to be perfectly silent, but I could have at least not made everything worse_, he scolded himself, longing for wind magic's ability to create muffling cushions of air underfoot as one walked.

He checked the magically-etched stone he'd been given for the purpose of the trial and found that he'd been in the cave for two hours. Deciding he'd rested enough, Izuku slid his notebook back into the satchel, then picked up his torch, hauling himself to his feet and heading back out into the last sunlight he'd see for a while. At the chamber's edge, he took a deep breath, then his first step into the downward slope that led to this cave's first upper layer.

The first rat he saw startled him, but as he made his way along the tunnel, Izuku grew used to their company. They didn't seem particularly interested in him, scurrying to and fro at the edges of the torchlight as they went about their own business. A couple of times, he came across holes in the cavern walls, but their origin and purpose remained unclear until an ant the size of his fist dragged a dead rat into one and vanished, chitin glittering orange in the light of the fire.

An hour into this layer, he found the first body.

It was old, and he doubted he was the first to run across it. From what personal effects hadn't decayed or been stolen, he figured it was someone who'd failed the trial, but he had to wonder: _how did they manage to die here? _They had died sitting up against the wall, so there was always a possibility they'd been injured in a lower layer and succumbed up here. The thought was sad - bleeding out alone in the dark, knowing you'd never have a proper burial - but he couldn't dwell on it, and after giving the skeletal figure a cursory once-over for anything he could use, Izuku went on his way.

Towards the end of the first layer, he encountered a spider that had wandered up from the second, and while he lacked a long-hafted weapon this time around, his prior experience with these spiders had taught him that they weren't particularly intelligent. It would attack first, and that would be his window of opportunity.

_You can do this. Breathe, _he told himself. _Focus. Pour yourself into the weapon._

The familiar sensation of flowing energy hit his nerves, and he exhaled through his nose, closing his eyes for just a moment - then, as he felt his life force enter the blade, he stepped forward and darted to the left with a fluid agility he'd lacked seconds prior. Threatened by his approach, the spider lunged, but his sidestep foiled its attack, and without missing a beat, Izuku turned and drove the shortsword up to the hilt into its head.

Its legs twitched as it died.

After slaying the spider, a weary Izuku made camp roughly fifty meters from the entrance to the second layer. Between his chosen sleeping space and the gaping rift in the rock that marked the border between the two layers, a powerful odor of rot filled the cavern, and he figured it would effectively mask his own scent from the predators no doubt lurking below.

He didn't want to extinguish his torch, but he also didn't want to exhaust his supply of wrappings and oil or do something like light himself on fire while asleep, so with a grunt, he resigned himself to a quiet, dark night. Upon covering the torch with the thick leather extinguisher tied to the handle, he saw that the passage ahead was actually dimly lit by patches of bioluminescent mushrooms that grew along the walls. They were, he assumed, also responsible for the overpowering stench, and he was grateful for them.

Izuku slept fitfully, for he couldn't have slept soundly even if he'd so desired - there was too much at risk for deep sleep. When he awoke, he checked the time-stone again; according to the stone, he'd taken six hours to traverse the first upper layer, and if he wanted to be back at this campsite by ten at night, he had seven hours each way through the second upper layer. That would give him the third day to head back through the first upper layer and surface layer and...return to his life, he supposed.

_Am I even getting anything out of this? _he groused to himself. _I'll come back out, they'll see I survived, and I'll go right back to the same life until Father dies and...then what? _He and his mother were both in good health, well enough to travel. Perhaps they could sell the property and work their way up in a town where they weren't the subject of half a dozen rumors. Maybe they could head to Eolas - where he'd bought his notebook - and Izuku could find some work with the library. He'd be dismissed at first, but once the librarians learned he could read and write, he was sure they'd at least consider taking him on in some role or other.

Still, that wouldn't be for some time. The one Healer who'd come out to see his father - accompanied by a Manipulator, whose role was to constantly redirect and confine any and all magical energies around Hisashi in order to protect the Healer from possible plague magic contamination - had explained to Izuku and his mother Inko that Hisashi was not the only person with this disease, and that its spread had been a slow but steady trend from east to west. According to the Healer, the cause remained unknown, but those affected could live for anywhere from five to twenty years after infection. Hisashi's was progressing slowly, and Izuku would be an adult before his father finally passed.

Agonizing as the situation was for all involved, Izuku gave himself a mental slap for focus. He loved his parents, and he was down here so that he could come home safe to them tomorrow. _Yes. That's what I'll do. I'll show up at the door tomorrow afternoon as a man._

He decided to retract his earlier lament. He _was_ getting something out of this: time to think.

Relighting his torch, Izuku hurried through the passage of rot-shrooms only to find that the odor disappeared entirely the moment he stepped into the second layer, meaning that the fungi weren't rot-shrooms at all. Something had died in the passage or one of its branches. Unfortunate for the deceased, but handy for Izuku.

As he traversed the second layer, however, he became increasingly aware of the marks all along the stone walls. They were all around the level of his knees, alternating between three vertical gouges and a long, wavy scrape that continued unbroken for a couple of meters at a time. He also didn't find any living second-layer predators, though he did come across a butchered bat and what looked like a much larger version of the butter-clam worms from the first upper layer. It sprawled dead across the floor, three deep gashes along what he could only assume was its underbelly.

Something was wrong here. Izuku could _feel_ it was wrong. He should have been fighting off bats and bugs and whatever other low-level predators hunted here. He should have been worrying about what might be crawling overhead rather than what might have been lurking deeper in. The trial was harsh, the trial was stupid, the trial was dangerous - but the trial wasn't _meant_ to kill anyone, and if someone was well-prepared and at least competent with a weapon, the first two layers would not pose much of a threat. The middle layer experienced a difficulty spike, as did each successive layer, but they were only required to _reach _the middle layer, and he was certain nothing capable of carving stone with its claws lived near the entrance...

Then he came upon the lair and, for the first time, he felt fear.

The chamber reeked. He was sure that it hadn't always been a lair; this particular cave was fairly straightforward, as the main passage did not branch or fork. It had been carved by a single stream thousands of years ago, and were it not for its connection to the Críoch, it would have made a fine attraction for affluent would-be spelunkers. It consisted largely of a spacious, singular passage, punctuated by chambers where the stream had run up against a strata of harder rock and pooled, wearing away the soft rock behind it and to the sides before eventually making its way through the bedrock ahead.

The fact that whatever had made this den had made it in an existing chamber reassured him that there were likely few of them in the layer, as the chambers lay few and far between. The fact that this cave was largely a single passage sent chills down his spine. If he kept walking, he would no doubt encounter whatever lived here, unless by some stroke of luck it had crawled into a smaller passage in search of prey.

Raising the torch, Izuku swept around the chamber, inspecting the contents of the lair with his sword in the other hand. There were quite a few bodies, but most of them were old, and as the most recent boy to pass the trial had mentioned nothing about such a lair, Izuku figured it had been taken over sometime within the past six months or so.

The equipment on the bodies piqued his interest; attached as he was to his father's shortsword, he couldn't deny that it was a shoddy weapon. He'd sharpened and polished it, but its craftsmanship was mediocre at best, and the blade had grown brittle with age. The armour on several of the bodies was also tempting, particularly the limb guards, which would give him much-needed protection against biting monsters.

_Forgive me,_ he thought, dropping to one knee and beginning to remove the vambraces from a pair of skeletal arms. _I'm in far more danger than you are._

He began to circulate his own life force throughout his body, straining to pick up on any sound of an approaching threat. For the first few minutes, as he fitted the vambraces to his own forearms, there was nothing but the faint rustling and clanking of leather and steel - until he heard the first scrape.

Horrid chills shot down his spine.

The sound had come from further ahead in the tunnel, and Izuku took up a position to the side of the chamber's exit. He definitely couldn't hide, and even if he ran, his boots would draw its attention - and it was likely that this thing was faster than he was.

No, he would have to fight. He'd get the drop on it as it entered the room, which might at least give him an advantage to press.

_Scrape. Scrape._

A fine sheen of sweat formed across his skin. His heart pounding, Izuku listened as whatever it was drew nearer and nearer, until the scraping was right outside the chamber and he could see something pale and disfigured by the light of the torch he'd left on the floor -

With a scream that was part terror, part desperation and, unexpectedly, part rage, Izuku lunged for it, a surge of fear and revulsion shooting through him as the blade stuck and snapped off in the creature's dense, milky-white hide. In a brief moment of clarity, he studied with detached fascination the jagged edge of the hilt in his hand, the trickle of dark, gooey blood oozing up around the broken blade - then the thing, whatever it was, turned and clamped its jaws down hard on his arm.

The vambrace he'd just put on protected him from its fangs, but there was no denying the strength in this creature's body; the pressure of the bite alone was enough to send an intense ache into his bones, and with an irregular jerking twist, it flipped him into the air and tossed him across the chamber to crash into a pile of discarded weapons. A dozen rusted swords clattered across the ground, banging against the cavern floor loud enough to make his boots sound whisper-quiet by comparison, and Izuku, disarmed, scrabbled frantically at his sides in an attempt to find something to protect himself with before its next attack.

its head swung to and fro, trying to track him, and only then did Izuku realize that it was blind, eyeless, tracked him by sound, and the ringing, grating clash of steel on stone had it confused. With a great, snarling leap, it pounced on one of the swords instead, a two-handed blade with a decaying leather grip, and he expected the metal to break under its jaw strength, but -

_Bang._

With a blast like gunpowder, the edges of the blade lit up with flame, and it rocketed backwards out from between the monster's fangs, slicing through its gums like butter and shooting pommel-first across the chamber towards Izuku. Without thinking, his body and mind still pulsing with his own life energy, he reached for it, and the weapon seemed to slow midair, _letting_ him catch it; he pulled it closer and slid his right hand up to the guard, and as the beast howled in pain, he got his first good look at it.

"Dog" was the first impression he received, and it definitely had a canid body, but that was where the similarities stopped. It had no external ears, merely a lotus-pod pattern of holes to either side of its head, and it was completely hairless, its skin the color of curdled milk and stretched unnaturally smooth across its spine. If Izuku had been a less rational person, and especially if he hadn't studied the Áit Dearmadh caverns before the coming-of-age ritual, he'd have thought it was some kind of aberrant, otherworldly entity come to kill them all, but even in his panic, he recognized it as a cave wolf.

Cave wolves were considerably stronger than those on the surface and well-adapted to life underground, with claws able to gouge grips into smooth rock faces and full dependence on hearing and smell. This one moved in a twitchy, jerking fashion, but it wasn't sick - it was phocomelic, two of its legs malformed and twisted. One was simply awkward, but the other was almost useless, and if Izuku had to guess, it had come up from the middle layer in search of prey. It was even possible that its own pack had abandoned it, and he was struck by a pang of pity.

_You're a lot like me, aren't you? They thought you were beneath them and cast you out, even if the rest of you is still perfectly capable,_ he thought. This wasn't exactly a fair comparison - a wolf that struggled to hunt and a human who lacked nonessential abilities - but the sentiment was there, and Izuku gave a wry half-smile. _And yet, _he mused, _both of us are still trying. We each came to this layer of the cavern to keep on going, even if we didn't want to. Why is that, anyway?_

As if in response, the cave wolf closed its mouth, blackish blood running down its lower jaw, and tilted its head. Its eyeless face turning to regard him, it snarled again, and Izuku realized that down here, sentiment held no value. He murmured his thanks to the weapon, then began to coax his own life energy into its form - and the rusted old greatsword blazed to life, arcs of energy rippling along its nicked edges and up the pitted flat and flashing in every color from blue to yellow to red before settling on a cool green and shooting back down the blade and up his own arms.

As the monster charged him again, Izuku swung the sword, aiming to intercept its leaping attack with a vertical, overhand slash. Even with his senses up, he didn't register the way the weapon lit up or realize his own body had moved until the cave wolf's body lay torn in two at his feet and searing agony screamed through his upper arms and into his shoulders.

He dropped the sword, and the light drained from it, leaving it once again nothing more than a rusty old strip of metal.

Falling to his knees, Izuku breathed out something between a sigh of relief and a hiss of pain, studying his arms. The vambraces covered his skin, but he imagined that beneath them, his tendons were angry, inflamed, throbbing and burning.

The sword lay quiet and mundane upon the cavern floor. Izuku stared at it a moment, wondering what exactly it was had just happened. Perhaps his sudden strength had been an adrenaline rush, and he'd simply imagined the lights popping before his eyes? Regardless, the sword was certainly a solid weapon to cleave through such tough flesh and bone the way it had, and he gave silent thanks for its service before he left it to rest alongside whatever remained of its owner.

He pushed himself wearily to his feet, wincing as hot pain lanced through his forearms, and realized - he could bring the cave wolf's skin back as evidence he'd been to the middle layer, right? Relieved that he wouldn't have to continue his descent with no weapon and damaged arms, Izuku drew a knife, making his way to the cave wolf's body. Carefully, he skinned one half, then the other, bundling the skins into wet rolls and tying them together with some twine he'd brought along. He gripped his knife gingerly as he made his way out of the chamber, back the way he'd come, but a rattling scrape from right behind him made his blood run cold.

_More of them? I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm - _

Something bumped his ankle playfully, and he turned to see that the sword he'd used was right behind him, laying flat on the floor.

For a moment, he stared at it, the previous moment's icy terror still running through his veins. Then he took another step forward, and the sword followed like a puppy, dragging _itself_ along the ground.

_You've gotta be kidding me _was his first thought.

The concept of an enchanted sword wasn't a foreign one in the slightest - hell, most quality weapons were specially smithed and crafted so as to synchronize with, control and maximize the wielder's life force output. The concept of a sword that moved on its own, however, was completely unheard of; now that he thought about it, hadn't it ejected _itself_ from the cave wolf's jaws into his own hands?

Swallowing hard, Izuku leaned down and, ignoring the protests of his damaged arms, carefully picked up the sword. Its weight was comforting, if on the heavy side for a sword, and at his touch, the weapon hummed to life once again, vibrating faintly beneath his palms. In the darkness of the cavern, the blade glowed a faint, flickering green.

"What are you?" he murmured, rubbing at the rusted metal with the back of one finger, and as if in response, the humming grew in volume. It was almost as if the weapon had _its own_ life force, but..._that's impossible. Weapons aren't alive._

Izuku might have been rational, but he wasn't an idiot. The world was old, the gods older, and there were plenty of cases where adventurers or institutions had stumbled across or located ancient artifacts that were, in retrospect, perhaps best left sealed away. The odds of him encountering such a thing were low, but they weren't zero, and looking back over the chamber, he reasoned that one of the boys who'd failed the trial had ventured further into the middle layer - where the cave became more than simply a winding, single tunnel in the rocks and began to branch and expand as it encountered other cave systems - run across the sword, brought it back, and…

_Hang on. How did he die if he had a weapon like this?_ _Don't tell me that cave wolf killed him - that thing couldn't even handle the sword on its own._

Something further down the tunnel made an unpleasant skittering sound, and Izuku decided that thinking was an activity best reserved for safer surroundings. Fitting the sword as best he could into the straps of his bag, he set out for the surface.

The trip back was uneventful, but it was long and he was tired; thankfully, the "shortcut" he'd encountered in the form of the cave wolf had given him eight extra hours, and by the time night fell on the surface, he was already back at the surface layer, giving him the night and morning to rest before returning to town.

He set up camp in the first spot he'd rested - in the chamber with the ferns - and leaned back against the wall of the cavern, moonlight drifting down through the fissures in the ceiling. Here, he laid the sword across his lap, studying it by the light of his torch. The moment his hands left the grip, it fell still and silent, and to all appearances, it was nothing more than an old greatsword in desperate need of either repair or (at worst) salvage. _Do artifacts rust?_ he wondered. _You'd think they'd have some enchantment or other keeping them from degrading like this._

Briefly, he debated whether or not it was some sort of evolved form of mimic - monsters capable of taking on the shape of an object they'd encountered before, be it natural or artificial - but he quickly dismissed the thought. A mimic would have torn him to shreds long ago, and they certainly weren't capable of letting him release whatever kind of power he'd just unleashed upon that cave wolf…

When morning came, a lightly slumbering Izuku woke, the sword still and innocent beside him; he'd fallen asleep studying it, and his body screamed in protest as he sat up from an incredibly uncomfortable position. Ignoring the pain, he wrapped and oiled his torch one last time, lighting it again before setting out for the cave entrance. In what felt like no time at all, he was back in the unexpectedly bright light of the sun, and he had to squint the entire half-hour walk back to the village.

Now that the trial was over, he figured he'd notify the elders, then head home. What he'd do with the sword then was beyond him; it was in such bad shape that he would likely be allowed to keep it, and he'd have to explain to his parents where he'd gotten it. He'd also have to apologize to his father for breaking the shortsword, though he'd at least retrieved the blade from where it had snapped off in the cave wolf's thick hide.

Still, if this sword was indeed some sort of ancient weapon, why had it attached itself to him? It clearly possessed the power to save its previous wielder, but they'd died anyway, so he doubted it was simply looking for a free ride out of the cave. No, it had likely _chosen_ to lend him its power, and with a sort of thrill, he allowed a childish part of himself to entertain the idea of being _the chosen one._

_That's ridiculous, though,_ he eventually reasoned. _If I were some kind of chosen one, I would have been born with affinities and had a better life._ The rueful smile that came to his lips then surprised him, and he actually laughed out loud. _I think the tension is getting to me. I'm sure I'll feel better when I'm back in my own bed._

After three days underground, the surface was almost overwhelming, but he found a new appreciation for the freshness of the air, for the songs of birds and bugs, for the _color_ in the world. He thought he'd have embraced death with open arms - but when it came for him, he'd torn it apart, clinging to life with the ferocity only a dying thing could muster. Here now was the life he'd held onto so tightly, and it bore a beauty only one who'd seen death's barren face could truly appreciate.

"Midoriya!"

Gazing up at the sky, Izuku hadn't noticed that he'd already made it back to the village outskirts. A group of children several years younger than he played a game by the roadside, some kind of sport where they all carried large, painted wooden paddles and hit a ball around.

"Yeah," he shot back automatically, keeping the inflection out of his voice. "I know." In truth, he didn't, but most of the time, when a younger child called out to him, it was to relay a rumour he'd already heard dozens of times and that they must have just picked up from their peers or parents.

"How could you know what we were gonna say?" a girl asked him, wrinkling her nose. "I bet you don't even know what the game we're playing is called."

"Does it matter?" Izuku sighed, too tired to care. "I'm going to see the elders. Enjoy your game."

Without warning, one of the other boys slammed his paddle into the ball and sent it flying straight for the back of Izuku's head. He didn't see it until it had already struck him, knocking him off-balance and sending a sharp bolt of aching pain through his head.

_Definitely not the chosen one,_ he agreed. _I'm getting bullied by a bunch of twelve-year-olds._ _How pathetic is that?_ _Sword, do you even know who you handed yourself over to?_

As if in response, it hummed against his back, and a thought that most certainly wasn't his own made its way into his mind.

_You could hack those children down to their boots if you so desired, but even in your pain, you bear them no ill will. Your thoughts are only of those for whom you care deeply._

Izuku stopped in the middle of the path.

"What's the matter, Midoriya?" another girl taunted. "Did that hurt?"

"Leave him alone. The Plague's probably got his brain by now," the boy who'd first called out to him told her.

He was silent another few seconds. Then he turned, picked up the ball with one hand, and drew the sword with the other, resting the tip on the packed earth underfoot as he spoke.

"Yes, it hurt," he called back, head throbbing. "But I have someone back home who's hurting much more than I am. So - " and he tossed the ball high, gripping the sword with both hands now " - I don't have time to hurt right now, sorry."

Ignoring his discomfort, he swatted at the ball, hitting it back to them. It rolled to a stop on the grass in front of the closest child, and when he glanced up to gauge her response, he found the whole group staring at him as if they were only just now seeing him for the first time.

Izuku kept walking.

He moved further into the village, ignoring the glances and murmurs his mere presence provoked. By the time he entered the hall, someone had clearly notified the elders - they sat in their shoddy makeshift thrones upon some carpenter's attempt at a dais. This arrangement was, Izuku was certain, to allow them to look down on anyone brought before them, though why they all smiled gleefully when he stepped into the skylight at the center of the hall was beyond him.

_I know they aren't happy to see me. So what's got them in such a good mood?_

"Izuku Midoriya," the village head thundered, ignoring the six other elders seated to either side of him. "You've returned alive from your trial. Prove to us your worth."

Without breaking eye contact, Izuku held aloft the cave wolf skins. "I slew this beast in the cavern's depths and present its skin to you as proof of my manhood," he recited, by rote, feeling none of it.

The elders were silent, and only the village head remained unsmiling. As far as Izuku could remember, the village head himself had always been sympathetic to the Midoriyas' plight, and it had been his influence that had allowed them to stay in the village in the first place. Izuku didn't blame the man for the way his family had been ostracized - how would he have controlled such a thing? - but the fact that the only ones smiling were the ones who took pleasure in his family's suffering made Izuku uneasy.

He held a brief hope that his slaying of the cave wolf would grant him some leniency in whatever they were scheming. It wasn't common for the boys of the village to return with a trophy; more often than not, the monsters were the ones bringing home trophies. This hope was shattered, however, when the elder on the far left spoke.

"Where, pray tell, did you acquire the weapon on your back? Your family does not have the money to afford even that strip of rust you call a sword."

"I picked it up in the cave after my father's blade broke on the monster whose hide I carry," Izuku replied, struggling to keep his voice level through the sudden surge of dread that filled his body. "Why do you ask?"

"Did you take it from a corpse?"

"I believe it may have been carried by one who failed the trial," he admitted, swallowing hard.

"Stealing from the dead is a foul act," another elder proclaimed, her voice ancient and creaking louder than her bones. "This stolen sword and its thief can bring only misfortune upon our village."

"I didn't _steal_ anything!" he blurted out, curling his hands into fists. _No. Don't do this. Don't you _dare _do this. You know my family needs me. You know my father is going to die. Don't do what I think you're going to do. _

"Then where did you get it?"

Izuku let himself breathe a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer, controlled. "I pulled it out of a pile of old equipment in one of the chambers. I think someone from one of the previous trials must have gotten it from further in."

There was a pause, then another elder cleared his throat. "So, technically, it was in the possession of the deceased?"

"How could I know?" Izuku shrugged. "The cave wolf threw me into the pile and sent stuff flying everywhere, and I just grabbed the nearest weapon." This last part was a lie, but how was he supposed to explain to them that the sword had thrown _itself_ to him?

The elders murmured amongst themselves. Occasionally, one glanced at him; he could tell by the way the firelight glinted off their eyes. After a few seconds of this, Izuku decided that he was far too nervous to simply stand here with no knowledge of what they were talking about, and so he turned to the basic weapon arts technique of circulation, focusing on the flow of his own life energy through his body. As the effects kicked in, his senses grew sharper, and the first thing he heard was -

"Izuku Midoriya," one of the elders declared, her voice gargling out from behind the wattle of her throat, "are you aware of the repercussions of stealing from the dead?"

"Repercussions?" he echoed, completely lost. "Uh, no."

"Desecrating another's final resting place brings a powerful curse upon the culprit," she boomed, spreading her mottled arms, and Izuku's stomach dropped. Then, in a honeyed, sickly-sweet voice that didn't fool him for a moment: "For one already so cursed…my dear, we as elders are afraid you'll bring naught but misfortune upon our fair village. This is for your own good, you see."

_What? What's for my own good?_ Izuku thought, mind and heart both racing. _What are you talking about?_

"We can't allow this to continue," another agreed. "First, the Plague upon your poor father...now, a robber, and a grave-robber at that."

His voice heavy, the village head elaborated: "The council wishes to call a vote on the exile of Izuku Midoriya."

_...Exile…?_

The words didn't fully register until, one after another, the hands of the council members to either side of the village head rose; he himself did not raise his hand, but conceded defeat nonetheless, burying his head in his hands with a heavy sigh.

"You see, Midoriya," the elder with the honeyed voice went on, "you've already brought nothing to our village but discomfort and misfortune. It's only thanks to Fergus here - " and she patted the village head's sloped shoulders a little too roughly " - and the will of your parents that you've been allowed to stay this long, but now that you're a man, you are no longer under your parents' protection, and we see it necessary that you leave. Perhaps, in your absence, your father will recover."

Izuku wasn't quite sure how to respond at first; he gaped soundlessly for a moment, then shook himself, trying to gather his thoughts. The elders waited patiently, watching him with their hands folded and expressions of what he could only describe as condescending false pity.

"Why?" he said, at length. "You know my parents aren't going to be able to survive without me. It's too much work for just my mom. Why can't you just let us be? It's not like it's hurting anything to let us live on the outskirts like we've been for the past sixteen years…"

"But that's exactly it!" she positively _chirped_, clapping her fat hands once. "Everyone believes you to be a Plaguebringer, dearie. What would they think of _us_, allowing an adult Plaguebringer to continue living under our protection?"

"So you're saying that you're kicking me out to boost your ratings?" Izuku shot back, true anger flaring up in his chest. "Because you think people might not vote you back onto the council if you don't do something to comfort them? How about you try to reassure them that I'm _not_ a Plaguebringer? Don't pretend that you don't know about how all children with Plague affinities are executed by a royal disposal unit."

"But _they_ don't know that," another elder explained, with the detached, half-amused air of one confronting a petulant toddler. "And there's a very high chance that they wouldn't believe us even if we all took your side."

"Look at it this way, dearie," the woman suggested, the smile on her face failing to reach her eyes. "You can finally get away from all of this! Think of it as a second chance."

"And what about my parents!? Are you just going to let them die?" For a moment, Izuku's fingers twitched, and he reached for the sword. Immediately, the two guards stationed to either side of the dais lowered their spears, pointing at him.

"Your judgement has been passed, Midoriya," a previously-silent elder declared. "Take your cursed, stolen sword and think - if you'd died with honor in that chamber, you could have atoned for the suffering you've brought us."

"What suffering!? What do you mean, died with honor!?" he screamed back, feeling too mistreated to care about the repercussions, and before he knew it, his frustrations were spilling over. "You would have liked me to have my throat torn out in that cave where nobody's ever gonna retrieve my body? The caskets at the funerals for the boys who die down there are empty, aren't they? Why the hell do you keep sending boys down there? What do you _get_ out of it?"

He didn't receive an answer. Instead, the woman spoke again: "Guards, please remove Midoriya from the hall and escort him to the village boundary in whatever direction he chooses," the woman instructed, clapping her hands once before addressing Izuku himself. "Dearie, I don't believe someone like you could ever understand why we choose the sacrifice we do."

The guards advanced, giving warning jabs with their spears, but on pure instinct, Izuku drew the sword, and it hummed to life as he parried both jabs with a single swing. They'd been more warnings than actual attacks, but he'd drawn his weapon on them, and belatedly, he realized that he may have just doomed himself. There was no way he'd get out of here now, not with guards stationed all around…

The council, to his surprise, did not start calling for his head - no, they'd taken a collective intake of breath, they'd started muttering amongst themselves, studying the sparking edges of the blade, and the elder addressed him again, her voice now a silky purr. "Actually, Midoriya, my dear...may I ask again where you found that sword?"

"I told you, it was in the cave!" he shouted. "Why? What about it?" _Why are you changing your tune all of a sudden?_

"It seems we've misjudged both you and your weapon," another elder told him. "That sword...if you are willing to hand it over, we will allow you to continue living here and caring for your parents."

Izuku blinked, still wary, but the words were placating. "You'll...what? You'll just let me go home?"

The elder dipped his head. "Just give us the sword, and all transgressions will be forgiven."

_Transgressions? Yeah, right. Still, if this is the only way I can see Mom and Dad again..._

"Sorry," he murmured to the sword, shifting his grip so that it lay flat across his palms. "Thank you for your help. But I have to go home. I have people relying on me."

Frowning, Izuku took a tentative step forward, holding the sword out, and the guards moved aside. The noisiest elder reached out to take it, her eyes alight with greed, and as he handed it over, the light seemed to go out of the sword.

_To be perfectly honest,_ he admitted to himself, _I'd have liked to keep it, but I'm definitely not going to trade away my parents' lives for a weapon, even if it's...special._

The elder shifted her stubby hands up and down the sword, feeling it up. Izuku retreated as respectfully as he could manage; now that they had what they wanted from him, he didn't have any bargaining chips left, and he wasn't about to blow his second chance.

Unfortunately for him, the sword had other ideas.

Just as the elder gripped the hilt with both hands, holding it upright in front of her face, the sword flared with an irregular, electric light that danced black-and-red along its length before launching itself into the ceiling with enough force to rip the woman's arms off.

For a moment, all present were unable to do much more than stare, too shocked to act. By the time the woman's body began to catch up with her injuries, it was too late; blood pumped from her torn arteries, painting dark splotches on the dais, and as she began to scream in agony, her own arms came crashing to earth, flopping uselessly upon the wooden platform. Two seconds later, the sword floated back down, right into Izuku's outstretched hands, and the other elders began to shout -

"_Guards! Seize him!"_

"_What did you do!? What cruel power is this!?"_

"_Stop the bleeding - don't you have Healing affinity!? Can't you do something!?"_

It was much, much too much - Izuku felt faint - the sword hummed louder than ever - everyone was screaming, some were sobbing - blood was everywhere - she was going to die without a powerful Healer - then someone was shouting for him to go, to run, and he had just enough time to realize that it was the village head before another elder knocked him to the floor with a heavy punch to the face and the guards closed in on him -

The sword jerked his arms upright, and Izuku shouted in a voice that wasn't his:

"_Borian art: Anáil Fórsa!"_

With a heavy swing of the blade, a powerful gust of wind swept through the town hall, sending the guards sprawling and their weapons clattering off into the shadows at the edges of the room. Acting on pure instinct now, ignoring the way his own arms ached and burned, he sprinted from the hall, still wielding the greatsword, blood flecking his front - the sword shouted through him again:

"_Leucetian art: Grásta Tintrí!"_

\- and then he was moving much too quickly for his body to handle - _It hurts, it hurts, it hurts - _his muscle tore, his tendons ripped, he would no doubt collapse and die any moment - _how the hell did I get out of town already?_ \- his mind couldn't keep up, the sword sparked and crackled -

The adrenaline pumping through his body kept him from feeling too much pain until he'd long fled the confines of the village, and as he let out a choked half-sob, whatever weapon art he'd used lost its effect - _how the hell did I use weapon arts!?_ \- and he tumbled headfirst into some bushes.

The last thing he thought of before all the strength left his aching, burning, stinging, _screaming_ body was the bed he'd been so looking forward to sleeping in once more.


	2. Eolas

**Yo. I wasn't actually planning on continuing this, but I really liked the world I'd written for it (the planning document alone is 2k words so far) and decided I'd keep it going as a bit of a demographic test.**

* * *

**chapter two: eolas**

It was night, and his whole body ached.

Izuku did not remember waking up. He only knew that he'd been asleep at some point several seconds ago and was now wide, wide awake.

He'd passed out in a bush somewhere along the side of the road half a kilometer from town; how Izuku had gotten here from the town hall in the last thirty seconds he could remember being conscious wasn't entirely clear, but he decided that getting up was a better use of both his limited time and brainpower than sorting through his hazy memories.

Staggering out onto the path (tilled earth packed hard and worn down by generations of travelling feet), he paused to stare back at the place he'd so reluctantly called home for the past sixteen years. His parents were there, awaiting a return that wouldn't come; a foul cocktail of grief, fear and anger rose in his throat like bile, and he clenched his fists just long enough to register that his tendons were badly inflamed.

His bag with all its supplies still rested on his back, and he was grateful for the limited rations inside. The cave wolf's appearance had spared him hours of travel, and as a result, he'd been able to save a scant meal's worth of food and water, which he now hastily ate and drank. It didn't do much for his injuries, but at least he had some energy, and he set off down the road, the sword once more wedged between his back and the bag.

_Eolas. All I have to do is make it to Eolas and I'll be able to get back on my feet._

The town of Eolas was roughly half a day's walk northwest of Túschic - if he got going now, he'd surely make it by noon.

His mind was still hazy, and he doubted that he would survive if set upon by bandits, but he was lucky enough to find the road between the two towns deserted. It wasn't until well past dawn broke that he so much as glimpsed another living thing in the form of a pair of chestnut horses pulling a covered wagon.

"Hail, traveler!" the driver called. Izuku took a few seconds to register that he'd been addressed, and he struggled to focus on the man's face. "You seem weary. Are you in need of aid?"

Izuku's legs felt like lead, and he wasn't sure how he was still walking, but his brain had locked on to that single thought - _get to Eolas_ \- and he shook his head, taking another dizzy step past the cart.

Overhead, the sun glared into his eyes.

"With all due respect, sir, you seem on the verge of collapse. Wouldn't it be best for you to rest?" the man wheedled, yanking on the reins and bringing the horses to a stop. Izuku tried to say no, but he'd made the fatal mistake of pausing his mechanical walk, and his feet were no longer capable of movement; one boot dropped heavily to the ground, and his toe dug into the earth, tripping him - he toppled, his face unable to resist the pull of gravity, and he could only watch as the road rushed up to meet him -

The driver's arms, firm and heavyset, caught Izuku before he fell, and the road rolled along beneath him as he was carried to the rear of the wagon and hoisted like a sack of potatoes into the covered carriage. Airborne a moment, he caught a glimpse of the other passengers - all men, all dirty - before he flopped face-down onto the plank floor.

Some part of him that wasn't completely out of it knew that he needed _rest_; it would help his wounds heal and his mind recover, and once more he yearned for his bed back home, itchy wool blanket and all.

"How much d'you reckon for this one?"

"He's just a farm kid. Twenty silvers at most."

"What's with the sword?"

_How much…? Shit, are they slavers?_

All around, he could hear the murmurs of the men seated around him, and he received the distinct impression they thought him unconscious. One poked him a couple of times, then grasped the greatsword strapped to his back by the hilt, seeking to pull it free.

Izuku stiffened as memories of the previous afternoon came flooding back - memories of the elder's arms being ripped from the joint at the shoulder - but before the man could remove the weapon from its makeshift sheath, a heavy rumbling that shook the very earth stayed his hand. Heaving a silent sigh of relief, Izuku could only listen as the cart bumped to a stop and the men around him got to their feet, the wagon floor creaking as they stood.

The rumbling grew louder, and someone swore before pulling the back of the cover closed, casting the inside of the carriage into shadow. Outside, there was a shout, punctuated by a deafening blast that could only be magic and followed by the desperate, pleading voice of the driver.

"_So if you fuckin' shitrags ain't carryin' anything important, how about we take a fuckin' look? Is there a goddamn problem with that!?"_

"No, sir, no, I just - a merchant's pride - "

"_Shove it! Púgun, go have a look in back and see what this useless sack of shit's hiding."_

"_Aye, chief."_

"Please, I have to ask - "

"_**I said shove it!**_"

Another blast, a yell of pain, and something thudded to the ground.

"_I __**ain't **__fuckin' around!"_

Izuku's blood ran cold. _Rescued from slavers by bandits...out of the frying pan, into the fire, huh? _Still, in his exhausted state, he knew he was in no condition to fight whatever may come; the bandits might be brutal, but maybe they'd see he wasn't worth anything and let him go. Perhaps the possessions of the slavers would be worth more to them than a teenager who'd not even an affinity to his name.

The back of the wagon cover was yanked open from the outside, and he heard cloth tear before one of the men standing around him began to stammer out something that sounded like an apology.

Another blast, weaker than the first two, erupted not five feet away. "I'm not hearin' it, show me everything ya got," came the demand, the voice quieter than the first. Izuku could almost _hear_ the shaking in their steps as the men moved aside, and for a moment, everything was silent but for the song of distant birds and the drone of some insect in the woods nearby. Then -

"Who's this?"

"That's, uh, me nephew. Gets sick in these long carriage rides, he does," one of his captors - were they really captors if he'd not resisted? - lied, smooth and natural as the butter Izuku had churned back home.

Izuku hadn't taken the time to examine his own body, but he supposed he must be in quite a sorry state, for the newcomer sounded unconvinced. "Why's he covered in bruises, then? Hey, kid, can you hear me?"

_...Ah. He's addressing me._ Physically spent as he was, he could only muster a two-tone "uh-huh" from the back of his throat, which was all the other needed.

"This piece of shit your uncle?"

"Nuh."

"Where ya from?"

Unable to say the word _Túschic_, Izuku could only point with one finger, curling his hand into the weakest fist he could ever remember making as his tendons throbbed in agony.

"_Oi, Katsuki! _Somethin's fishy back here!"

Heavy footfalls made their way to the back of the wagon now, and after a moment of murmured deliberation between the first stranger and the second (as if the men around him weren't also strangers), the sound of boots slamming to the floor nearby reached his ears. Pain lanced through his entire body as Izuku was picked up and hauled once more back out onto the road, but to his relief, he was placed on his back this time, allowing him to actually see what was happening.

A small caravan of young men around his own age had gathered around the wagon, their shaggy, thickset horses waiting patiently a little further down the road as a youth with a shock of pale blonde hair glared down at Izuku with his hands on his hips.

"Stay there and don't do anything stupid," he barked, pulling a weapon from his back. "I don't give a shit if you're injured - try anything funny and I'll scatter your entrails from here to Cathair Coimhne."

Izuku could only blink stupidly at the axe he carried, its head easily twice the size of a standard battleaxe and comprised of a carefully-cut frame with no center instead of a solid metal slab. It reminded Izuku of a barn roof, with its outer edge reinforced by steel struts connecting it to the weapon's haft. He supposed this design was to minimize the weapon's weight, but even with all the "missing" pieces, the axe still looked impossibly heavy, and Izuku began to wonder how its wielder even found the strength to swing it more than once.

He got his answer not thirty seconds later. The blonde turned to face the wagon, then, without taking a step toward it, slammed the head of the axe into the ground so that the haft pointed to the sky above the wagon's dirty white canvas roof. Gripping the very end of the handle with both of his palms, he shouted:

"_Modh na Fothrach: Scartáil ón Spéir!"_

_Fothrach…? What kind of school is that?_

Raw, burning power erupted from the axe head into the ground, leaving a crater and catapulting the young man and his weapon into the air. As an awestruck Izuku stared, a series of blasts rippled along the axe's blade closest to the wagon, propelling it in a half-circle before its Wielder shifted his grip and, with the back of the weapon still crackling with explosions, brought it crashing down into the wagon with earth-shattering force the likes of which Izuku had never in his life beheld - then the entire interior of the axe's frame lit up with countless detonations, venting sheer destructive _wrath_ to either side of the impact site and utterly annihilating both the wagon and, presumably, the slavers within.

_So the axe isn't built like that to lower its weight...he propels it with his arts, while the frame is designed to maximize the weapon's available surface area and allow him to channel those blasts wherever he needs to. That's a custom weapon, huh…?_

Izuku hadn't really seen much of the world outside the hamlet where he'd been born, but he could say with absolute certainty that the blonde was on another level of power from anyone he'd ever met.

_Just who the hell is he?_

The other men converged on the wagon, sifting through it for a couple of minutes before two of them approached Izuku where he lay. Wordlessly, they tossed down a charred assortment of meager supplies - bandages, paper-wrapped bread and water skins, a blanket - before the avatar of destruction himself strolled up, glaring daggers at the prone Izuku.

"Much as I'm not gonna let an innocent kid get the shit beaten out of him by a slaver, I'm also not gonna forget about this," the blonde snarled. "We ever meet again, you fuckin' _owe_ me, got it?"

A mute nod, and the other snorted, turning away and striding off to where his horse waited obediently by the roadside. One of the men who'd brought over the supplies followed suit, while the other flashed Izuku a brief, sympathetic half-smile.

"There should be an actual merchant coming along in a couple of minutes," he said, jabbing his thumb towards Eolas. "The merchant's guild ain't too bad, we'll leave a flag or somethin' and they'll pick you up and take you back to Eolas. Got it?"

Dazed, Izuku nodded.

"Right. Good luck, kid."

_...And there goes the nameless good guy of the group. By the gods, that was close - I thought I was done for._

He'd have time later to think on why these people had chosen to search the slavers' wagon, or why they'd chosen to give him the supplies and take nothing for themselves. Right now, he was simply grateful to be alive, and that was all that mattered. He could feel himself slipping back into the comforting abyss of sleep, and all he could do now was cross his fingers and hope that the next merchant to come down this road was a real one.

* * *

By all accounts, Ochako Uraraka was not a prodigy.

She was good with her Life magic, but as the only student at the Acadamh Draíochta na Áit Dearmadh without a second magic affinity, she was generally overlooked by her peers. Ochako was fine with this; she would prefer they believe her to only have that single affinity than to have them know her second.

In this world, magic was generally a product of the environment. One of her earliest lessons at the academy was that magic was split into three types: elemental, energy, and several affinities that shared no characteristics and were classified as simply "world magic".

Elemental magic was the most common type of magic, with 85% of those registered as mages possessing at least one elemental magic affinity. Roughly half of those possessed two, though they typically leaned on a single affinity with the other for support or backup. The name was more or less self-explanatory, covering magic capable of controlling elements such as fire and wind.

Energy magic was next, with around 40% of registered users possessing at least one energy affinity. Around a third of that 40% had a Life affinity or a derivative thereof, a second third possessed an affinity for Death or the sub-school of Necromancy (and excluding Plague, whose users were executed upon discovery), and the remaining third fell under Light magic or its specialized Illusion or Hardlight schools. Life and Death magic both focused on life energy, with Death magic causing direct damage to it and Life magic manipulating it to harm or heal. Light magic focused on the manipulation of light itself, whether to create illusions, cast shadows, or even condense energy into a solid form. Ochako's own affinity for Life fell closer to healing than anything else.

The last category contained only two known schools of magic: Force and Flow. The latter, Flow, was an affinity held by around five percent of the magic-using population, and its ability to directly manipulate the flow of mana made its users highly sought-after. Flow users typically became battle-mages, as their skillsets were most commonly needed on the battlefield and not in many other places. Ochako had never met one herself, but she'd read about them, and depending on which school of Flow they fell into, they could reflect hostile spells, siphon mana from opposing armies, empower fellow mages' abilities, and even pull in mana from the very air around them to replenish their allies' reserves.

It was the other affinity, Force, which troubled her. The last documented Force user had lived over a century ago, in another country, and as such, not much was known about it other than its ability to control (as its name implied) raw force. Force magic was supposedly incredibly powerful, like a scaled-up version of the telekinetic abilities used by some monster species, and was theorized to be able to counter physical attacks (a stereotypical weakness of most mages, though some - primarily Earth and Ice users - could stand toe-to-toe with a Wielder in melee combat) and most elemental magic as well as bend the world itself to the user's will.

All in all, Force magic was regarded as nothing short of legendary, and it was Ochako's second affinity.

The problem was, she couldn't do much with it.

Seated in the empty classroom, Ochako watched her textbook float in the air above her desk. It was all she could do with the limited Force magic she could use - no matter how hard she tried, her abilities didn't seem to want to manifest. Once again, she thought back to _the incident_, and as her frustration peaked, the book shot up to slam into the high ceiling before drifting back down onto the desk, bringing with it a cloud of dust from above. It was more or less accepted among the mages in the academy's research sector that her full power had been sealed away by the trauma of ten years ago, but while she'd more or less managed to stop thinking about what happened that day, her abilities never fully returned.

The day she'd arrived at the academy, it had been decided for her that she should present herself as a single-affinity Life mage and never, _ever_ reveal her second affinity, and - desperate to please - the six-year-old Ochako hadn't hesitated to obey, committing fully to her facade until she almost believed it herself. Days, weeks would pass without a sign of Force magic...then she'd have a nightmare and wake up to her room in gravitic disarray, books and knickknacks drifting aimlessly through the air until she managed to relax and release her powers.

"It's moved?"

"The signature we tracked into and out of the Críoch has vanished, yes."

Ochako frowned. She'd been receiving these "special" lessons with decreasing frequency ever since her arrival, and as such, she spent a lot of time in the classified research department waiting around for whichever researcher-turned-professor would be overseeing her that day. Ordinarily, no student would ever be privy to the conversations that went down in these rooms, but she was such a regular fixture here that most of the researchers behaved as if she were either one of them or simply not there at all.

"Any sign of it since?"

"A single flare of life energy in a village about a hundred and fifty kilometers to the southwest. That's all."

"Maybe it finally made its choice."

"Bullshit. Who the hell would go down there after something like that?"

It became apparent that whatever they were discussing was either incredibly important or utterly fascinating when one of the researchers excused himself to greet Ochako. Evidently, he was the one in charge of her lesson or observation or _whatever this even is anymore_ for the day, and he'd gotten so wrapped up in their conversation that he'd completely lost track of time.

Before she could stop herself, Ochako blurted out: "Am I even needed here anymore, or can I just go back to my room on time for once?"

Expressions apologetic, the researchers admitted that no, she wasn't needed just then and to come back tomorrow. With a frustrated huff, she crammed the floating textbook back into her bag and stormed off, expression somewhere between irritated and miserable.

Due to her tendency to float objects in her sleep, Ochako was stuck in a single-occupant room, meaning that she had no roommate to help ease the loneliness of having neither friends nor family. To make matters worse, single rooms at the Acadamh Draìochta were typically reserved for students with some condition or other, and such students generally kept to themselves. The girl next door, a petite brunette with an unhealthy fixation on fire magic, routinely needed to be carried back to her room after lessons (and Ochako never could figure out why), while the boy across the hall didn't seem to have any disability but instead wore a girls' uniform that left his distinctly two-tone leg hair exposed from above the knee down to above the ankle. She hadn't been sure what to think about this at first, but his mannerisms and the not-at-all subtle change of - not even his first name, but his last - into "Todorokiette" (accompanied by "male" on the student registry) led her to believe he was, for whatever reason, attempting to disguise himself. Theories abound as to why, but as the academy had up until four years ago been a girls' school with an unhealthy prejudice against male students, Ochako was inclined to believe it was an incredibly misguided attempt to blend in.

He was, of course, failing miserably at doing so, but as he was an incredibly gifted mage and - unusually - a Wielder, their peers were too scared to say anything for fear that he would burn their eyebrows off or run them through with a spear of ice.

On the flip side, Ochako reasoned, she'd probably disguise herself as a boy if she were to enroll at the weapon arts academy on the eastern coast of Áit Dearmadh. In contrast to the Acadamh Draíochta, it had been a boys' school up until four years ago, and from what she'd heard, the students there were not exactly kind to girls seeking to become Wielders.

When she reached her room, she made sure to lock the door behind her before collapsing into her bed with a long sigh. Blue-grey light filtered in between the blinds, and as quiet as her dormitory was, she could hear the faint patter of raindrops drum up on her window, followed by the distant shrieks of younger students as they fled for shelter.

_I'm tired of this. _

She enjoyed learning magic. She could say this with absolute certainty.

What she _didn't_ enjoy was the chronic, pervasive loneliness that stemmed from her first years at the academy being filled with tests and experiments that cut into her free time and subsequently isolated her from her classmates. By the time the staff had finally accepted that she could provide no further data, students her own age had decided that there must be something wrong with her, and in spite of her newfound free time, she was still just as alone as she'd always been.

Ochako hated the academy. This, too, she could say this with absolute certainty.

Still, what else did she have? She'd decided to become a healer after graduating, and she needed the last couple years of education to do it. There was no way she was going to quit school and spend her days slaving away in a field for a pittance. _Maybe that sounds spoiled, but for once in my life, I'd like to have something go my way_, she mused, laying her chin on her pillow and staring across its cloth surface at the book she'd fallen asleep reading the previous night. With another sigh, she reached for it, flipping to the last page she could remember and deciding she'd spend the rest of the evening dreaming she were anywhere else.

* * *

When Izuku awoke, it was dark, and he could no longer feel the comforting weight of his bag on his back.

_Was I robbed? Where am I?_

He couldn't feel any fresh injuries - actually, he couldn't feel any injuries at all - and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized that he was indoors, lying atop a bed with white sheets. He could make out the distinct, lumpy shape of his bag on the nightstand and a cloth bundle that he didn't recognize on the floor beside it, along with the sword resting point-down in the corner. Wherever he was, he hadn't been robbed or hurt, and though he hardly dared believe it, he had a sneaking suspicion he'd been taken to Eolas. He would not, after all, be resting so well had he been taken back to Túschic.

As if on cue, the door opened and a man clad in felted, off-white robes entered the room, carrying a candle; upon seeing that Izuku was awake, he let out a satisfied grunt and placed the candle on the dresser opposite the bed. "You're up. Excellent," he declared, clapping his hands together, and it didn't take Izuku long to figure out who this man was.

"Are you a Healer?" he asked bluntly, choosing to skip the pleasantries.

"That I am. What are you?" the man countered, a good-natured grin slipping onto his face, but Izuku didn't return it, studying the back of his hand (his secondhand vambraces, cleaned and polished, lay on the nightstand beside his bag). The inflammation was gone, and he felt no pain when flexing his fingers.

"Homeless," he deadpanned. _Is there any reason to lie?_ It wasn't as if he had anything left besides the clothes on his back and the supplies he carried with him. "It's a long story. Thank you for treating me, but I don't have anything of value to give you."

Unexpectedly, the Healer laughed out loud. "On the contrary, you do. Seems to me you've got a story to tell, and it just so happens that I'm in the mood for one. Besides, what would I charge you for? The seconds it took to heal you? The mana I used?" Still, Izuku bowed and apologized, and the man waved him off, insisting that it was fine, that the clinic he ran didn't see that much business anyway, that he'd been bored when Izuku was brought in.

Izuku finally caved and accepted the price of his story, and he briefly explained the circumstances leading to his collapse in the road between Túschic and Eolas. The Healer introduced himself as Neamhath Cneanóir, and to Izuku's surprise, he was already familiar with the "trial" that the young men of Túschic underwent.

"I've been brought in a few times to deal with the aftermath," he sighed, heavy and deep. "I don't know what goes on in those caves, but no sixteen-year-old should have that many puncture wounds. Not all of them make it, even if they get out of the caves. You're lucky to have survived."

"Lucky is one word," Izuku murmured, glancing back at the sword. "A cave wolf was living in the second upper layer. If I hadn't happened to run across it in an open chamber with a pile of bodies and equipment lying around, I'd have been killed the moment my sword broke off in its hide."

"A cave wolf that close to the surface? A pile of bodies?" Neamhath echoed, quirking one white eyebrow. "I heard the upper layers weren't particularly dangerous, but cave wolves are not something an inexperienced fighter should be dealing with, especially one that's killed that many people."

Izuku shook his head. "I don't think the cave wolf was responsible," he admitted, swinging his legs out of bed and reaching out for the weapon that had saved his life; Neamhath made as if he was going to get it for him, but Izuku reached it first, sitting back down and laying the sword across his lap. "It had some kind of deformity, so I think it must have been a young one that came up from the middle layer looking for easier prey. Most of those people had been dead for a long time before that wolf ever turned up, anyway. I took those - " and here he pointed to the vambraces " - off of a skeleton."

For a moment, Neamhath was silent. When he spoke again, his voice was grave. "Continue."

Izuku frowned, but the other's expression gave away nothing, so he continued, chest feeling heavier than it had when he'd woken up. Briefly, he described the cave wolf's attack and the way the sword had more or less moved on its own, even going so far as to follow him out of the chamber; the Healer remained stone-faced, impassive, and Izuku began to wonder if perhaps a sentient sword wasn't as uncommon as he thought. "When I got back to the surface, the elders tried to kick me out until they saw the sword, then demanded it in return for letting me go home...but when one of them took it, it tore her arms off and came right back to me." _Wow, that sounds completely insane,_ he realized, after the words had already left his mouth. _This guy's going to think I'm nuts._

For the first time, surprise broke through the older man's mask. "It tore her arms off and I wasn't called? That's a first," he commented, sounding incredulous.

"I think one of the elders has a Healing affinity. I'm not sure, though."

"Well, I'll hear about it if that's the case," the older man shrugged. "What happened then? Don't tell me they just said to get out after your sword tried to kill someone on its own."

"The guards tried to stop me, but...I don't know. I don't have any affinities, so I don't know what happened exactly, but I used a weapon art and ended up blowing them away before the sword activated another one on its own. I was out of the town in about thirty seconds flat."

"Maybe you had a hidden Borian affinity?" Neamhath suggested. "Wind can do both of those things."

"The first art was definitely wind," Izuku agreed, "but the second felt more like lightning shooting through my whole body than anything, and I think I said something else starting with an L…"

"Leucetian?"

"Yes, that."

The Healer didn't seem surprised so much as he did anxious. "Midoriya, was it?" A nod from Izuku. "You say you have no affinities, yet if your story is to be believed, you used two separate schools of _modhan claíomh_ with no issues?"

"Well...I wouldn't say no issues. I definitely tore something, and the motions were enough to cause inflammation in my hands and arms."

"Hm." Neamhath rose from his chair to pace the room, back and forth between the doorway and the window opposite. "Hmm."

Izuku allowed him a couple of seconds' rumination before he cleared his throat and Neamhath started.

"Ah. Yes," he declared, tapping a finger to his chin. "Truth be told, there _is_ a record of something like this happening, even if it's only a legend...it's regarded as so historically insignificant that the book containing the full story is still in the Eolas library, if you're interested."

Something about this didn't quite sit right with him, but with his interest nonetheless piqued, Izuku leaned forward, unconsciously gripping the hilt of the sword with his left hand. _Even if he's not being entirely truthful, I could find out more about this sword. _"You've heard of something like this?" he prodded, and the older man nodded sagely.

"In a few words, there are tales of a sword that allows its Wielder to command any school they so desire," he explained. "Considering that even an enchanted weapon is incapable of unlocking a Wielder's powers beyond the school they're already capable of using, I can see the appeal, but I've never heard anything other than that story until now. If you don't mind, could you demonstrate?"

Izuku blinked. "What?"

"Ah, sorry - I'm sure that startled you. I'm just curious. Could you possibly use a technique that isn't from the wind school?"

For a long moment, Izuku met the man's eyes, studying their muddled grey depths, but there didn't seem to be any other motive there, and with a sigh, he pointed out the obvious. "I'll injure myself again, you know."

"I can heal you even as you're receiving damage," the other offered. "You won't feel a thing - well, probably. If you do, it won't be for longer than a second."

_In that case...I'm curious about this, myself. Can I really use weapon arts?_

"Do you know the names of any techniques offhand?" Izuku asked. "I don't actually know any, so if I just leave it up to whatever comes naturally, you might not like what happens next."

"I'm afraid not," Neamhath admitted. "I suppose we'll just have to deal with whatever happens when it happens."

"If you say so." Then, without further ado, Izuku stood, grasping the hilt of the blade with both hands; it lit up in that pale green glow again, and a voice that both was and was not his own called out: "_Modh na Vulcan - Spuirean na Dragan!"_

Flames shot up the length of the blade, and faster than his eyes could even follow, it whipped back and forth three times, each swipe sending a burning slash through the air to scorch a long, black line on the stone wall across from the bed. True to the art's name, when the flames cleared, the mark left behind looked as if a dragon had indeed swiped its talons across the wall.

Both Izuku and Neamhath were shocked into silence for several long seconds. Then, to the former's surprise, the latter began to laugh, a hearty, infectious chuckle that Izuku couldn't help cracking a smile at.

"Brilliant," the Healer wheezed, clutching his chest. "Absolutely brilliant. That was single-handedly the least informed request I've ever made in my life. We're lucky you hit the stone wall instead of the wooden one, eh?"

"Aye" was all Izuku could really say in response. He'd have felt terribly guilty if that had happened, and the thought alone sent a cold chill down his spine; the old man had been nothing but kind to Izuku, and burning his clinic down would be an objectively terrible way to repay him. "Sorry about the, uh, the burns." Belatedly, he realized that his hands and arms didn't hurt at all and reflected on how useful having a Healer to travel with would be. Not that he'd ask Neamhath - he seemed to have settled down nicely here in Eolas - but if he came across anyone like himself, he'd have to ask.

"It's nothing. Say - what did you say your last name was, again?"

"Midoriya?" _Didn't I just tell him? Like, two minutes ago?_

"Hisashi's son?"

Whatever Izuku had been expecting, it wasn't this. "Yeah, what about it?" he asked, mouth going dry and blood running cold. He could hear the pounding of his own heart in his ears.

"Ah, I used to buy potatoes from him at the market years ago," the Healer explained, shaking his head. "He'd always juggle them and breathe fire through the middle to make a show of it. Sometimes he'd roast them on the spot with fire magic and sell those, too."

Izuku, too, could remember his father doing these things for Izuku's entertainment when he was young, and he relaxed a little. _He really does know Father, huh?_ he mused. "I'm surprised you remember. He hasn't been well enough to go to the market since I was six."

"Has it really been ten years?" Neamhath asked, but his gaze slipped past Izuku, and the latter received the distinct impression that the man wasn't addressing him. "Well - no matter. For the time being, _Izuku mac Hisashi_, I would suggest keeping that sword's true nature a secret. Take it to a smith to get it fixed up if you can, too. A rusty old blade with the power to carve through stone and monster hide will raise more questions than one that's been well-maintained."

The Healer had a point there, and though Izuku had a slew of questions left to ask - _who exactly are you? why are you so interested in weapon arts if you're a Healer? did you _really _meet my father at the market?_ \- he decided that, for better or worse, he'd let the old man keep his secrets in exchange for his advice and kindness. "I'll keep that in mind," he said, dipping his head. "Thank you. Do you know of any inns that are open this late?"

"Whatever for?"

"Now that I'm healed, I should really get going. I don't want to abuse your hospitality any more than I already have."

"Young man, you really are something else. By all means, rest here until morning - though I have to wonder what you're planning to do from here on out."

"Well," he began, and now it was Izuku's turn to tap his finger against his chin, "I figured I might be able to do something useful at the library here. I've loved it there ever since I was a kid, and I'm sure they'd have some use for me once they see I can read and write." Many of the peasant-class could do neither; their "reading" was closer to symbol recognition than actual comprehension of letters and the words they formed. The word "Inn", for example, was seen as a shape on a sign rather than written language, and if asked to read it aloud, most of Izuku's home village would be hopeless. He'd more or less taught himself after coming to Eolas with his parents twelve years ago; at age four, Izuku had been fascinated by the library, with its aged towers and endless rows of books blanketed in thick, dusty silence, and while his parents peddled produce, he'd taken it upon himself to seek out a librarian, who'd been happy to help the boy learn and even given him a book to practice with at home.

Again, Neamhath's gaze wasn't on him, and this time, Izuku realized that he was studying the sword. "You're not planning on doing anything with that?"

Izuku grimaced, lifting the weapon up to his chest. _I can't deny that there's a romantic appeal to taking a legendary weapon and adventuring with it, but I have to think practically about this. It's a really bad idea to travel alone, and how am I going to make money? Where am I going to stay? _In books he'd read, adventurers would slay monsters and butcher them to sell their parts, either directly to craftsmen or to a middle-man service that paid less in exchange for convenience. Eolas may have held draw for scholars, but the town as a whole sustained a wider population of fishing-families and craftsmen, and Izuku was sure he'd be able to make at least a few coppers by hunting down predatory monsters outside its walls.

What would he do then, though? Live out his days sorting books, writing notes and killing beasts? He couldn't see himself satisfied with such an existence - there were still too many questions he wanted answered.

_One day at a time,_ he decided. _I've lived that way my whole life and I've gotten by just fine. In the morning, I'll scrape up a few coins and have a smith fix up the sword, like Neamhath suggested. _

He realized that the Healer was waiting for him to speak and hastily cleared his throat. "I'll figure it out," he said. It was an evasive reply if he'd ever given one, but it was truthful, and he didn't think he was imagining the concern in the old man's eyes.

Neamhath, though concerned, knew he held no authority over the young man standing before him, and after several far-too-long seconds of silence, he dipped his head respectfully. "Alright. If anything happens, you know where to find me."

"Right. Goodnight. Thanks again for your hospitality."

Even so, when Izuku had returned to bed and Neamhath his study, the Healer buried his face in his hands and groaned.

"After everything we went through to keep that thing from ever seeing the light of day again...Hisashi, your misfortune never ends, does it?"

* * *

"You're asking me to fix _this?"_

"Yes."

The blacksmith stared down at the shabby sword in Izuku's hands, mouth agape. "Kid, I don't know if there'll be any blade left when the rust's gone, but I can give it a shot." He held out his hands, and Izuku deposited the money he'd earned hunting that morning into one of them, followed by the sword into the other.

For a moment, he tensed, watching the weapon closely, but it didn't seem particularly inclined to attack; on the contrary, he was struck with the impression of a dog preparing to be brushed, as if the sword was somehow _relaxed._ Then -

"Kid," said the smith, with the slow, cautious air of a man confronting a dangerous beast, "are you a Wielder?"

"I - yeah." He'd been about to deny it, but he supposed he _was_ one now, even if he had to use this specific weapon to channel his life energy. "Why?"

The man's attitude towards the sword prior to actually touching it had bordered on disgust, and it wasn't difficult to see why: to all appearances, it was a low-quality weapon that hadn't been taken care of. Now, however, he held it out with the reverence one might expect when handling something particularly valuable. "I'm a bog-standard blacksmith, and even I can tell this thing's not just any old sword. It ain't something I can work with, either - you need an Ucuetian smith to do anything to an enchanted weapon, and you'd need a damn good one to work with this sword in particular."

_He's...rejecting my business? _

Sure enough, the smith was now handing back the fistful of coins, and Izuku accepted them, slightly reassured by the gentle _clink _of metal money. _At least he didn't demand payment for a once-over._

"So who else do you suggest I see?" he asked, trying his best to keep his voice light.

"Nobody in this town, that's for sure," the man grunted, wiping his hand on his heavy apron; Izuku watched as bits of dry-rotted leather from the sword's grip crumbled to dust against the soot-blackened cloth. "The next closest town is a few days northeast by wagon, but even if there's no smith there, someone there should know something. It's home to the Acadamh Draíochta na Áit Dearmadh."

Izuku had heard this name before, though only in passing. "That's a magic school, right?" he asked, returning the sword to the makeshift sling of his bag straps (a task made marginally more difficult by the addition of the roll of stolen supplies to the top of his bag) and making a mental note to get a scabbard fitted at the leatherworker next door. "Wouldn't it be better to head to the weapon arts school instead?"

"You'd think, but the Acadamh's got wizards in charge of researchin' this stuff. Arts school's on the other side of the country and it's more like a dojo or a training ground than a school. Went there to try and tap into any Ucuetian potential I might have had, but I wasn't any good."

"And you said it was only a few days northeast?" said Izuku, half-turning to the door of the shop.

"Aye. There's a merchant's caravan preparing to set out tomorrow morning - they invited me, but my son's caught cold and the wife needs someone to fetch medicine for her while she takes care of him. I'm sure they'd be glad to have a Wielder on board." Rough hands rustled through stacks of parchment beneath the counter until, rather abruptly, the smith produced a letter with a return address clearly scrawled out at the top left. "Here. Just tell him you're willing to work for your ride, he's a fair man."

"Right," Izuku nodded, taking the letter. He neglected to mention that his Wielding was limited to the unpredictable usage of whatever arts the sword itself deemed appropriate for the situation and that he'd tear his own ligaments using them. "Thank you for the advice. I'll be on my way."

He'd never been particularly adept at starting or ending conversations - another product of his isolation - but the smith didn't seem to mind; Izuku reasoned that craftsmen were more often than not practical people, recognizing small talk and formalities for the wastes of time they were.

With the money he'd not been able to spend at the smith shop, he placed an order for a custom-fit scabbard, then located the address he'd been given; the house it belonged to wasn't a mansion by any means, but it was much sturdier than the simple wood-and-thatch structures back home, built from warm grey stone cut and laid with the utmost care. The windows all had glass in them as well, flashing Izuku with reflected sunlight as he approached the oak front door.

The owner, a well-to-do merchant, was on the rotund side and resembled a shaved bull; had he sprouted horns, Izuku would have been fooled. Tactfully, he chose not to say this aloud, instead presenting the letter and explaining himself, and to his relief, the man was not nearly as intimidating as his appearance suggested. "Lovely," he said more than once, his voice decidedly higher than Izuku expected it to be. "Absolutely lovely. Having a Wielder along for the ride - bandits beware!"

With his affairs settled and his scabbard slated for pickup the next morning, Izuku very suddenly found himself out of things to do. The tasks he'd been planning his whole day around had either been aborted or completed, and left with the evening to himself, he decided to sell some of the supplies from the slavers' wagon to the various shops around town. He supposed he could have used the middleman in the market square, but he needed every last copper he could get right now, and besides, he was actually starting to enjoy himself for the first time in quite a while.

Guiltily, he realized that the reason for this was that he no longer had to worry about his home life, and before he could stop them, memories came flooding back in the form of questions. _What are they gonna do without me? Will Chief Fergus be able to help them survive like he said? What should I do?_ _I haven't even come up with a solid reason to start looking into this sword, either. Shouldn't I be trying my best to go home and take care of them…?_

_No,_ said another voice, the cynical id to his anxious superego. _If you were to go home right now they'd just arrest you or try to kill you, and the elders have your parents right where they need them in case they need a bargaining tool. They're holding all the cards and you've got a scrap of parchment with a four of clubs drawn on it. Plus,_ it went on, tone growing seductive, _you're free now. Isn't this what you wanted?_

Izuku couldn't bring himself to answer that question and forced it out of his mind, choosing instead to head to a tannery. He'd sold the hides from the morning's hunt here earlier - a pack of wild dogs had rushed him not fifty meters from the northern gate and promptly been dispatched using the same basic Wielding techniques that Izuku had used to slay spiders in the past - but it occurred to him that he'd been holding onto a particular hide for far too long, and when he removed the cave wolf's hide from the burlap sack he'd put it in, a dense, foul-smelling cloud of decay hung around the open-air shopfront.

"By Cernos, that shit reeks," the tanner coughed, bringing his undershirt up to cover his mouth and nose. "What the hell is it? How long have you had it?"

"A day, I guess?" Izuku choked out, refusing to face the bundle or look at the tanner; he was a short man, standing only a head above his own counter, and he stumped out from behind it to take a closer look.

"Monster hide?" he guessed, and when Izuku nodded, he grimaced, taking the rolled hide in his gloved hands. "What kind?"

"Cave wolf, from the middle layer of the Críoch."

"The hell was a kid like you doing in the goddamn Críoch?"

A rueful smile spread across Izuku's face. "It's a long story. I'm from Túschic."

"Isn't that the place where they make kids kill each other or somethin'?" the tanner grunted, beginning to unroll the cave wolf's hide across the counter.

Izuku couldn't help the laugh that burst out of him just then and had to answer the understandably baffled man's stare with a string of firm denials. "There's a coming of age ritual where they send boys underground for three days when they turn sixteen," he explained. "You're supposed to bring back something from the middle layer, so you can't just hide in the surface layer."

"Barbarism," the other spat, moustache quivering with the weight of his indignation. Izuku was inclined to agree, but said nothing, and at length, the man gave a curt nod. "Still, you found a good hide down there."

As payment, Izuku managed to barter the tanner's services for the remainder of the slavers' supplies, minus food. He wasn't happy with the projected six weeks it would take for the cave wolf's hide to be ready for use, but he figured he'd be coming back through here eventually and could simply pick it up then.

He slept fitfully in the cheapest inn he could find, where the beds were no more than straw palettes covered in scratchy wool sheets, then picked up his scabbard and made his way to the town's north gate at the crack of dawn to meet up with the rest of the caravan. To his relief, he wasn't the only swordsman there; there were five others, all older than himself and much more certain of themselves to boot. _Swordsmen_ was perhaps not the most accurate word; a woman with a dark braid down her back wielded a pair of hand axes, while another girl carried a halberd. Two others, both men with sandy hair and freckles, had a bog-standard sword-and-shield strapped to their backs, and across the shoulders of the remaining man lay a heavyset bastard sword that made Izuku's own look slender by comparison.

He did his best to keep his gaze level, taking care to meet each and every one of their eyes before dipping his own head in greeting.

"Hey, Cean!" the man with the bastard sword called. "This whelp coming with?"

Izuku sighed, but he couldn't really argue the point. He knew he was young, and their opinions of him would probably sink even further once they saw what kind of shape his sword was in. At present, it sat snugly inside its new scabbard, which he'd strapped on under his bag.

"Aye, the kid's a Wielder," another voice returned, this one familiar; after a moment's searching, Izuku located the man he'd spoken to yesterday standing in the gate itself. "Goll recommended 'im. Says he's got one hell of a sword!"

_...I really didn't want that getting out. _He stiffened, prepared to be deluged with requests to see the sword, but to his relief, the mercenaries - who'd gathered by the second wagon from the gate, at the corner of the cobbled crossroads - weren't paying attention, their heads turned to survey the wagons that trundled one after another to the end of the caravan. Izuku counted eleven before the head merchant, the man called Cean, boarded his own wagon; the shrill _peep_ of a whistle signaled their departure, and following the others' lead, Izuku hopped into the back of the second wagon as it began to roll forward.

Like the caravans he'd traveled in as a child, each merchant, their party and wares were essentially independent units functioning within the larger entity that was the convoy. As far as he was aware, this was done for safety; bandits were far less likely to attack large groups, both because caravans carried mercenaries with them and because more victims meant more families out for revenge. He'd never met one himself, but he'd heard tales of bounty hunters who took payment in exchange for their "services"; the legality of such services was sketchy at best, but the only ones who'd ever speak out against it were the bandits themselves.

The six of them, accompanied by eleven armed merchants, should have been more than enough to deter a bandit attack…

..._So why are there nine armed men on horseback riding towards us?_


	3. Acadamh

**Interesting fact: if this were historical fiction, it would have to take place after the Saxon invasion of Ireland for some of the architecture/technology to make sense.**

**Not-so-interesting fact: it's not, and such a thing literally doesn't exist, because it's just fiction that uses a real-life language.**

* * *

**chapter three: acadamh**

"Hold!"

The leader of the caravan brought the entire train to a halt with one shout and the shrill peep of a whistle, and the six mercenaries - Izuku included - exchanged glances. "It's a little early on for a bandit attack, isn't it?" the man with the bastard sword teased, a wolfish grin spreading across his lips.

"Much too early," the woman with the halberd agreed, her accent decidedly high-class, and Izuku had to wonder why someone like her had taken up arms as a mercenary. "We're not even out of sight of the walls yet."

A glance told Izuku that she was correct - the road ran straight from Eolas, and in the distance, its weathered stone walls rose up above the horizon.

"Come on," one of the two with shields said, speech clipped and expression empty as he stood and stepped down from the back of the wagon. His twin followed in silence, leaving the other four no choice but to stand by their side.

They moved to the front of the caravan together, accompanied by several nervous-looking merchants wielding shortswords and daggers. _They probably won't be much help,_ Izuku mused, _but even the temporary distraction of an armed attacker will be enough until we stave off the rest._ He was sure there would be injuries, considering that it was nine-on-five if he didn't count himself - and, frankly, he wasn't sure if he should. He was armed and capable of using weapon arts, but he sure as hell wasn't experienced.

The others drew their weapons as if it were the most natural thing in the world to them, expressions ranging from impassive to outright excited. Trying not to let his hands shake, Izuku followed suit, slowly pulling the greatsword from its scabbard and bringing down over his shoulder to rest at an angle to his body.

"One hell of a sword, huh?" the man with the bastard sword mocked, and Izuku henceforth decided to refer to him as Bastard. "I was expecting something flashier. That thing probably couldn't even cut through cow shit."

He didn't give the man the satisfaction of a response, instead training his gaze on the nine growing closer by the second. Within the minute, they'd come within shouting distance, hailing Cean the merchant: "Oi, piggy! Don't you know there's a tax on this road?"

Each wore the same patina-black steel armor with an identical saber sheathed at the hip and a vaguely familiar insignia on the right shoulder, though their clothes beneath were all different, which struck Izuku as a red flag for reasons he couldn't quite understand.

"Tax? There's no tax." Cean ignored the insult and got straight to the point. "We run caravans along this road quite regularly. Do you mean to tell me a tax was implemented within the past month with no announcement whatsoever?"

The men grinned unpleasantly, and the one in the center ushered his horse forward a couple of paces. "That I do, aye. Pay up - five pieces 'f gold per wagon."

"That's ridiculous!" one of the other merchants shouted. "Some of us aren't even carrying that much on us!"

"If yer not willin' ta pay up, we've got nothin' against 'avin' a look fer ourselves," came the rebuke. "Boys?"

Perhaps intending to intimidate, the entire lot of them dismounted, approaching with their hands on the handles of their swords and a swagger in their steps. Swallowing hard, Cean reached into his wallet to placate them, but Bastard stepped up to intercept their would-be assailants, fixing the heavyset man at the front of the group with that wolfish grin of his.

It was likely Bastard's attitude more so than his weapon that caused them to hesitate for the first time - after all, what kind of man would initiate a one-against-nine with such a smile? "You mean ta fight the army?" the armored man challenged, drawing just enough of his blade to suggest a threat. "They'll be after yer heads."

To his credit, Bastard didn't give an inch. "You think you're convincing anyone with that shitty getup?" he countered, the grin retreating from his eyes and turning into a feral bearing of teeth. "Your armour barely fits your fat ass and anyone with half a brain can see you don't have a clue how to handle that saber."

Incensed, but keeping his head, the bandits' leader - Izuku was now certain they were nothing more than thugs in stolen armor, which would explain the nonstandard clothing they wore underneath - let his own smile drop, regarding Bastard with considerably more caution than he'd approached the group with. "And what if yer wrong?" he tried, banking on the formation of doubt, but Bastard wasn't having it.

"I'm not. Now fuck off."

Prepared for an attack, the merchants shrank back, while the rest of the mercenaries stepped forward, weapons at the ready - only for the bandits to step back and the man in front to suggest: "Tell ya what. If ya can beat me in a one-'n-one duel, we'll let ya pass. How's that?"

Caught off guard, even Bastard seemed surprised, but this only lasted a moment; his grin came back in full almost immediately, and he didn't hesitate to agree. "Sounds fair. Get ready to go!" he added, calling back to the relieved merchants. Izuku had an inkling that the mercenaries were familiar with one another, and the way the other four let themselves relax a little told him that perhaps Bastard was, in fact, a competent fighter to back up his attitude. Even so, he kept his guard up, ignoring the less-than-impressed glances from his erstwhile companions. _Anything can happen,_ he reminded himself. _That's how I got here in the first place, isn't it?_ He'd genuinely expected to be at home by now, but here he was, north of Eolas and facing down nine armed men with nothing more than a rusty greatsword and some shoddy stolen vambraces.

As the merchants shuffled back to their wagons, the other eight bandits stepped back to form a half-circle in the middle of the road, blocking it off. Their leader stood in the middle of this formation, drawing his blade and assuming a sloppy stance that he might as well have just come up with on the spot; even Izuku, whose experience with combat had so far been limited to spiders and canids, could see the openings in his guard, and he had to wonder just what the man was planning behind his piggy little eyes.

Bastard strode forward to face him, at last taking his hefty blade down from his shoulders, bending his knees, and placing one foot behind the other, as if he meant to charge the larger man the moment the fight began. Apprehensive, Izuku studied the bandits, carefully noting the grins flashing between them. _Are they expecting this guy to win against Bastard? _he wondered. _It's true that I don't know either of their combat potential, but it's striking that they're so certain of themselves._

"Three!" called the bandit directly behind his leader.

The woman with the axes let out a long, slow breath.

"Two!"

A couple of the armored men chuckled.

"One!"

Cean wrung his hands.

"_Fight!"_

Immediately, the bandits' leader drove his blade into the ground, sending up a wave of solid earth that shot straight for Bastard's head, but the mercenary just laughed, swinging his namesake from the ground to the sky and cleaving straight through the attack before it even reached him.

_Wind arts?_

Perhaps expecting such a counter, the larger man tore the sword free from the dirt, bringing with it six feet of stone that towered like a wall before him. Unfazed, Bastard took the momentum from his initial strike and spun to his right - "_Modh na Borian - Gaoth Rásúir!"_ \- whirling in place and lashing out with a razor-sharp gust of wind that left a deep gouge in the stone. It was testament to his control that his whirling attack only targeted the stone shield before him, but just as he spun again, prepared to slice straight through the rock -

"_Modh na Litavian - Briseadh Talamh!"_

The bandit's blade slammed into the back of the stone, above the gouge, and the top half of it shattered into a deadly hail of high-velocity shards - Bastard sent a gust of wind back at them and threw himself forward onto the ground, rolling under the barrage and bringing up his sword to slam into his opponent's. The bastard sword, heavier and sturdier than the army saber, forced the man back, and he stumbled and fell, arms flying up above his head and sword burying itself in the dirt.

To Izuku, this seemed a little _too_ clumsy, and the fact that the sword had practically driven itself into the ground told him that something was up - but Bastard didn't seem to think twice about it, letting out a triumphant yell that almost immediately turned into a shout of pain as a spike of earth shot up to strike him in the chest and send him reeling.

_He sent an art through the ground under his own body and relied on Bastard's confidence to hit him with it, huh?_

The spike didn't stop there - a dirt wall shot up in a ring around the mercenary as he fell painfully to the ground, and while Izuku knew Bastard couldn't see outside of it, he himself bore full witness to the rest of the bandits advancing with their weapons drawn, save one bowman who stood back and trained his aim on where Bastard would inevitably pop up - and when the Borian Wielder launched himself airborne, prepared to fight again, a streak of lightning shot across the ring and struck him in the right shoulder with a _crack_.

The other mercenaries rushed forward, but Izuku knew they wouldn't reach Bastard's falling body in time to save him from being impaled on the sword that came up to meet his back, and without hesitating -

"_Modh na Borian - Anáil Fórsa!"_

Familiar pain lanced through his body, but he managed to mitigate some of the damage by swinging the blade himself instead of letting the sword propel itself. He couldn't _quite_ keep up with the speed of the technique, but as he'd used it just yesterday, the motions were at least correct, and a powerful gale swept across the road, sending both the greedy-faced bandit and the (quite literally) thunderstruck Bastard sprawling and staggering the rest.

He didn't stop there - darting forward, he knew he'd have to somehow stave off nine opponents long enough for the other four mercenaries to get it together. _If only I had some way to slow them down _was the only thing he could remember thinking before the sword flashed pale aqua and he remembered -

"_Modh na Caillean - Anáil an Gheimhridh!"_

He swung again, recognizing the _anáil _in the art's name as a "breath" much like the "Breath of Force" he'd just used, but to his surprise, the swing came much more slowly this time; as if the sword were guiding an overeager child, it almost felt like it was _restraining_ his movements instead of dragging him along for the ride.

Several shouts of "what the hell?" came from behind him, but he didn't stop to look, letting out a sigh of relief as frozen vapor rolled down the blade (bringing temporary but much-needed relief to the inflammation in his hands) and a surge of creeping cold swept across the field; it inevitably struck Bastard as well, but inexperienced as he was, Izuku wasn't able to control the sword's wild energy and was forced to accept it as friendly fire.

The other four mercenaries reached him then, and as shaken as they looked, they were clearly prepared to fight; embers flickered along the edges of the dark-haired woman's axes, and Izuku could see a soft, pale-green glow rising from the halberd in the corner of his vision. Shield One and Shield Two both seemed to be earth-based Wielders, their raised shields now bearing as spikes the stone shards from the bandit leader's earlier attack.

Izuku figured that if the other four took on two each, he could take the leader on himself; he wasn't particularly confident in his own abilities, but he was counting on the sheer unpredictability of his own attacks to carry him through the fight, and it wasn't as if the other's strategy was particularly complex: he seemed to be limited to drawing from the earth itself, so if he could stop the man's sword from touching the ground…

_The only problem with that is that I'm using a much larger weapon than he is, and he'll be able to swing it down much more quickly than I can stop him._

The throbbing in his hands and elbows wasn't as bad as it had been the first time he'd swung the sword, but he knew he couldn't afford to hack or smash through any Litavian arts thrown his way. As much as it pained him to admit, he'd definitely lose a battle of attrition to his own physical weakness.

_If only there was some way I could just stop him from using his arts...but what kind of technique would do that?_ He supposed he could try another ice attack - his limited knowledge of the different schools, mainly acquired through reading, told him that advanced Caillean arts could quite literally freeze an opponent in place. It was true that a skilled Wielder could channel their life energy even without swinging their weapon, but this man didn't seem capable of manifesting anything significant if he didn't have materials to work with.

Still, there was no guarantee it would work. He knew that his own life energy wasn't sufficient to pull off such a powerful art, and he didn't even know the _name_ of it, let alone how it would work; if he fumbled it, or it was blocked by another stone wall, he'd exhaust and possibly injure himself for naught.

_So what can I do…?_

It would be so much simpler to break through the man's defenses until his attacks started landing, but he knew that his abilities were limited, and no element he could think of could simply pass through or ignore solid earth or rock. Life energy itself could - that was, after all, the essence of the Litavian school, which focused on channeling through minerals. If there were some way his own life energy could pass through those fortifications unhindered…

The sword flashed again, grey this time, and a deathly chill settled over his entire body. Once again, the blade had responded to his thoughts, but he wasn't at all sure what this element was, if it even was an element; glancing down at the sword, he realized that the weeds sprouting pell-mell from the road had withered and died under his boots. There was no frozen vapor now, only a thick, clinging miasma of greyish-violet that cloyed unpleasantly around the blade, and as Izuku took a step forward, the grass underfoot continued to shrivel, as if he were sucking the life out of the earth itself…

A shiver ran down his spine as he realized what school the sword was now channeling.

Time seemed to slow as he lifted the sword again, advancing on the man who'd tricked Bastard; he felt oddly calm now, outside of his own emotional control, as if the sword in his hands had taken over his mind as well as his body. He knew the leader could sense it just as well as he, if the fear that flitted across the other man's face was anything to go by, and the earth-user immediately brought up another defensive wall as the bowman nocked another arrow, aiming straight for Izuku.

Momentarily distracted, he turned to face this new threat, but one of the Shields lunged forward, blocking the lightning-infused arrow with an earth-covered buckler. "Go!" he barked at Izuku, formerly dull eyes now gleaming with desperation, and the young Wielder didn't need to be told twice, head snapping back around to face his target as he closed the distance between them. He could sense another sneak attack, coming up directly underneath him through the ground beneath the wall, but he already knew that it wouldn't reach him.

"_Modh na Morrigan,"_ he said, voice deathly calm. "_Lann na Reapadair."_

_Blade of the Reaper._

Immediately, the clinging miasma of death-grey life energy clinging to the sword snapped into a projection of the blade itself, punching straight into the ground as Izuku traced the curve of the earth into the wall before him with the tip of the sword; he felt something _snap_ underfoot and the man's life energy withdrew, the attack ceasing altogether as Izuku's art severed the bond between weapon and Wielder. As he finished the swing, the blade arcing high over his head, the crooked shape of a sickle erupted from behind the rapidly-crumbling earthen wall, and the leader of the bandits - bearing no wounds - collapsed, the saber falling from his hand to clatter across the packed earth at the center of the road.

_A coward falls,_ whispered the sword.

Then color and warmth came back into the world and Izuku staggered backwards, the hold on him broken. He managed to keep his balance and his head, swiftly turning to survey the battle no doubt unfolding behind him, but seeing their leader dispatched so easily and their comrades struggling against the other four mercenaries, the remaining bandits ran for their horses, desperate to put as much distance between themselves and the caravan as they could.

Nobody bothered to stop them. Without the range and speed of Bastard's wind arts, it would simply have been a waste of effort to chase down their horses, and with his adrenaline fading, Izuku suddenly found himself both very tired and in considerable pain.

The leader was the only bandit to have been killed, but the bowman had been knocked out cold by a well-placed blow to the head, and his companions had quite readily abandoned him and his horse in favour of a wild flight into the trees and down a forest path that swallowed them up in no time at all.

Bastard was still conscious, though a little dazed from the lightning and in pain from the arrow still embedded in his right shoulder. From the amount of bleeding, it didn't seem to be a _dangerous_ injury, but left untreated on the road, it'd definitely end up infected. To his surprise, however, the other mercenaries hadn't gone for medical supplies - instead, the Shields were carrying over the unconscious bowman to lay him on the ground next to Bastard.

The halberdier stepped forward, placing the bladed end of the halberd on the bowman's chest and the haft on Bastard's, and as Izuku watched, that pale green aura enveloped the entire weapon, flowing along the length of it from the unconscious man to the wounded one. Aside from a hiss of pain as the halberdier skillfully pulled the arrow free, Bastard remained silent, and after a couple of minutes, she lifted the halberd, returning it to its sling on her back.

"What was that?" Izuku couldn't help asking.

Fixing him with a look he couldn't quite interpret, the woman nodded to Bastard, who'd started to roll his wounded shoulder as if testing it; to Izuku's surprise, he no longer seemed to be in any pain, and he let out a satisfied grunt as his arm dropped and he got up to retrieve his sword. "It's a Cernian technique," she told Izuku, expression still unreadable. "I used one asshole's life energy to heal another."

He cracked an amused smile, and a little of the tension seemed to leave her brow.

As his heart slowed and his nerves calmed, though, Izuku realized more and more the _gravity_ of just what he'd done. Not only had he gone directly against Neamhath's advice by using the ancient-looking sword in combat, he'd also displayed three separate schools of weapon arts and - more importantly - taken the life of another human being.

"_Messed up" is an understatement. I...don't feel as bad as I thought about having to kill a bandit, though._

At his back, the sword hummed.

They eventually decided on tying up the unconscious bowman and leaving him in the back of the mercenaries' wagon. The trip to Tacaíschoil - the small town whose jurisdiction the magic academy fell under - would last several days, and they figured that they'd give the man a small portion of their total rations to keep him alive until they reached the local jail.

Bastard, whose name Izuku discovered was in fact Donal, regarded him from across the wagon.

"You're something else," he told Izuku, by way of a conversation starter. "I thought you were just some wannabe kid wielding a scrap of secondhand garbage, but those fuckers would've made me into chopped liver if you hadn't knocked everyone over like that. I recognize a good Borian technique when I see one."

_Ah. So he's like that,_ Izuku thought, resisting the urge to laugh out loud. "Thanks" was all he said, keeping his face impassive. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to show it off."

Bastard - _Donal_ \- let out what could only be described as a _guffaw,_ and the woman with the axes spoke up. "If Donal here were half as wise as ya, you wouldn't have had ta. How many times have I told ya to pay attention to what your enemies are doin'?" she added, knifepoint glare thrown Donal's way, and he held up his hands placatingly.

"Easy, Aoife. The guy was a pushover, aye?"

"Only because this kid can use Morrian arts," Aoife shot back. "None of the rest of us could've gotten through that tub of lard's earth walls like that, even if he wasn't too skilled himself."

_Morrian._ School of the Morrigan, raven goddess of war and death. He didn't know as much about it as the elemental schools or even the other energy schools of Life and Light, but Wielders who danced so closely with death were typically assassins or other shady figures rather than heroes or noble warriors. Having seen the effects of a Morrian art for himself, Izuku could guess why - it would be impossible for anyone but a skilled Healer (who could sense the shattered flow of life energy) to determine the bandit leader's cause of death.

"Why did the rest of them run away, anyway?" Izuku asked, directing his question to nobody in particular.

"Same reason Caoimhe's been refusin' to look at ya'," Aoife grimaced, and Izuku followed her gaze to see the halberdier to his right staring hard at the canvas opposite them. "Ya scared 'em. Death arts aren't very common, and no one who uses 'em is good news."

Izuku said nothing, and for a few minutes, the only sound was the rattling of iron-rimmed wagon-wheels across earth worn barren by decades of travel. Then -

"I gotta ask, though - how'd ya pick up _three_ different schools? No matter how hard I try, I just can't do the fire thing with my sword." Donal piped up, arms crossed. There didn't seem to be any hostility in his question, and yet again, it was Aoife who answered him. Out of everyone there, the dark-haired axe-wielder seemed to Izuku to have the most combat experience and worldly knowledge, and his gratitude at her speaking for him was mixed with a surge of unease when he heard _what_ she had to say.

"That's 'cause the way your life energy comes out doesn't change," she cut in. "I've heard of _a few_ stories where people were able ta use other schools after messin' with Life magic, but they lost the ability to use the school they'd been usin'."

Caoimhe, the halberdier, agreed. "Your school is a direct manifestation of the soul," she declared, both her vocabulary and accent far above the vernacular. "The way in which your life energy is given form is an unshakable part of who you are." Donal nodded in what could be safely inferred as agreement, but it was painfully obvious he didn't quite understand what was actually being said.

Izuku, unable to manifest anything without the help of the ancient sword, remained silent.

"So," she went on, looking fully at him for the first time since they'd gotten back into the wagon, "how exactly is it you were able to use arts from three separate schools?"

_Think - think! What can you say that isn't going to go completely against everything they've just told you?_ He couldn't afford to draw attention to the sword, but for some reason, blaming the sword suddenly seemed like the simplest solution to this problem. If he could only come up with a valid reason as to how it could freely access multiple schools…_and it's not like I can just claim it was all one school, not when the effects of each art were so drastically different and I clearly stated the name of every technique I used. Ugh._

In the end, he settled on an explanation that, while far-fetched, would at least coincide with the nature of their destination. "I don't know," he lied, figuring that the less he let on, the less questions he'd receive in return. "I've always been able to do this. That's actually why I'm headed to the academy - I want to see if anyone there knows anything about it." The last sentence, at least, was true, but to add an air of plausibility, he threw in: "It's possible that I have a compound affinity."

This, of course, was absolute and utter bullshit. There was no such thing as a "compound affinity", but even though Aoife said as much, her doubt did nothing to snuff out her curiosity, and there was still a burning spark of it in her eyes whenever she looked at him.

"I mean," one of the previously-silent Shields said, "they're all cold, right? Ice, wind, and death, I mean."

Judging from his idiosyncratic need to clarify his own meaning at some point in every sentence he spoke, he didn't sound particularly sure of himself, but if (as Izuku began to suspect) his silence stemmed from a lack of self-confidence, then the fact that he'd spoken up at all would only lend credence to this conjecture, as if he'd thought on it enough to finally form and voice an idea.

"Aye, that's right!" Donal half-shouted, clapping his hands together and rousing the still-snoozing bowman (Caoimhe had explained that he'd be asleep a while due to the arts she'd used to heal Donal's injury) enough for the man to let out a noise somewhere between a snore and a groan. "Dead people and the north wind are just as cold as ice! Aye, maybe it's a new school or somethin'."

Only the halberdier had any doubt left in her eyes at the end of this discussion, which Izuku himself only observed, but he supposed that only having one person not fully believe him was better than having five.

* * *

When Ochako found the dormitory kitchen's spice rack empty, she groaned audibly.

The student lodgings were divided into sections, and as most of the single rooms were currently empty, her section was limited to herself, Unconscious Fire Girl, and "Todorokiette". There were only two people besides herself (and the staff, though she didn't think they'd steal from student kitchens) who could have raided the spice rack, and considering the other girl typically spent all of her time in the dorm resting, the only reasonable culprit was Todoroki.

"Todoroki...ette?" she called, knocking politely on his door. "Have you seen the spices from the kitchen? I was gonna cook some dinner and we're out of pretty much everyth - "

The door swung open and Todoroki, his face dusted with a fine coating of what could only be garlic powder, greeted her.

"Uraraka. I was just working on my makeup."

She gaped soundlessly like a fish out of water for a solid five seconds before she found her voice. "I'll...I'll leave you to it. Sorry to bother you."

He closed the door. Ochako planted her face in her hands and groaned again.

Already dressed in her uniform, Ochako slipped on her boots, fixed her hair, and headed out, resigned to the task of purchasing new spices with the limited funds she received as an orphan and a "priority research subject". The late summer sun burned halfway between noonhigh and dusk, throwing golden light and long shadows across the academy campus; here and there, students lounged or studied or played, indistinct voices carrying on the gentle breeze, and Ochako felt a familiar pang of lonely yearning.

About ten meters off the paved path, some boys played with a ball, batting it back and forth until one of a giggling group of girls used wind magic to send it flying away from them. It rolled and bumped across the grass, coming to a halt by Ochako's feet, and there was a long moment in which she stared at it, unsure how to respond. Then -

"Sorry about that," one of the boys called to her. "Mind tossing that back to us?"

_He probably doesn't know who I am,_ she guessed. _That means I can make a good impression on them, right? _Feeling a little heartened, she figured she would have some fun, holding out her hand and exerting the only Force magic she could manage to send the ball flying up to meet her palm.

She was certain she could pass it off as wind magic - but then she forgot to release her influence over the ball and, when she went to throw it back, it went skyrocketing, much to the confusion of everyone nearby. Embarrassed, Ochako gave a meek wave, let the ball go, and was out of the courtyard before it hit the ground.

_Great first impression._

She slowed her pace when she reached the stone footbridge between the academy and the town of Tacaíschoil - the academy was typically referred to as being "attached to" the town, but the way Ochako saw it, things were the other way around: Tacaíschoil was a charming little place, but there was really no reason for anyone to visit. It sat plain and pleasant on the northwestern coast of Áit Dearmadh, a town of farmers and fishmongers and foresters who harvested the pines growing tall and thick across most of the territory, and peacefully paid its taxes to the capital every year. It was the academy, situated on an island just off the coast, that brought in travelers and traders and gave the town what importance it held.

Ochako paused in the middle of the bridge to gaze out across the sea, trying to calm her nerves. On her worst days, she'd often come here to relax and clear her head in the salty air, watching the waves crash into the cliffs and spray over the rocks by the shore. A couple of times, when she was younger, she'd dreamed of mastering her Force magic, of using it to dive from the bridge and skim the water's surface like a gull, but as she grew up and her magic didn't, this dream died.

Not that that bothered her - she was used to it by that point.

It was on the way out of the gate at the end of the bridge that her routine began to deviate from the norm, starting with the boy coming around the corner at exactly the right pace and place for Ochako to walk right into him before she had a chance to stop herself.

Several hours earlier, Izuku Midoriya's caravan had pulled into Tacaíschoil, and after a brief dispute with the merchants and other mercenaries over payment, he'd grudgingly accepted enough money to pay for a couple of nights at the local inn and food to boot. After checking himself in and taking a much-needed bath, he'd had the cheapest meal he could find (potato and leek chowder) and asked around town for directions to the academy.

The place was, he thought, a gorgeous sight, an idyllic little hamlet located just a few days' travel away from the bland, flat expanse that was Túschic and only a couple from the hustle and bustle of Eolas. Once out of the cluster of buildings, the bridge he'd been told to look for came into clear view further up the coast, and he set off at a stroll, deciding he'd take his time and enjoy the moment. Once on academy grounds, he figured he'd simply ask the first person he saw about where he could take a magical artifact and proceed from there.

Colliding with a girl his own age, however, threw a wrench into his mental state.

She didn't seem nearly as dazed as he was by accidental contact with the opposite sex, and while his brain was still struggling to piece together a greeting, she spoke. "Are you okay?" she asked him, concern written across her face, and he managed a nod, taking a step away from her to get some much-needed air.

"Yeah, I'm - I'm fine," he got out, at length. She seemed unconvinced, but any urge to reassure her that he was _completely okay, thank you_ vanished when he realized that she was wearing a school uniform. Plaid skirt down to just above the knee, white button-up blouse, knee-high socks - without a doubt, she was a student, and judging from the direction she was heading, it was safe to assume she attended the academy. "Are you?" he went on, figuring a bit of rapport couldn't hurt if he could get some information out of her, and he managed to calm down a little at the thought of this being nothing more than a logical exchange of knowledge.

A rueful smile that he couldn't quite read spread across her lips. "I've had better days, but it's got nothing to do with you, don't worry. Were you going to the academy?"

"Ah, uh, yeah. I was…" _You were? You were what? Say something or it'll get weird! _After a moment, he reached for the sword - intending to show it to her and give himself something else to look at while he asked where he could take it - but she flinched, raising one hand as if to protect herself. Immediately, he was tossed ten feet into the air, and with a startled yelp, he came hurtling back down, slamming hard into the dirt with a grunt of pain. _What the hell!? _he wanted to shout, but he was far too winded to speak, and besides, she looked horrified enough as it stood.

"Oh - oh gosh, I'm so sorry," she stammered, mouth running a mile a minute. "You, um, you weren't actually going to attack me, were you?"

Coughing, he took a moment to catch his breath, pushing himself into a sitting position and leaning on his hands. "What? No, I just meant to ask you where I could take this thing. I need to know who to go to if I want an artifact checked out," he managed to get out, in spite of his shock, irritation and back pain.

"Ugh. I'm really sorry, I'm just...on edge today, and I don't like when...yeah," she finished, lamely. "Here, let me - "

She took a step forward to kneel behind him, and a stunned Izuku could only stare straight ahead as her hands went to his back, palms pressed firmly to his shirt.

"_Percuro."_

Her voice was soft, her touch gentle, and as the warmth from what could only be healing magic filled his body, Izuku shivered in relief, feeling the pain of both the fall and the injuries he'd sustained using his own weapon arts gradually melt away.

"Thanks," he mumbled, grateful but also more than a little uncomfortable. On the one hand, she was clearly a Life mage - possibly even a full Healer - and close to his own age; on the other, Izuku wasn't good with other people, and physical contact was something he both craved and despised.

Before he could think on this any further, she withdrew, quickly standing, brushing off her knees and extending a hand to help him up. Still wary, he nonetheless accepted, sweeping his hands across his backside in a way that told him there was absolutely still dirt all over the seat of his trousers.

"Tell you what," the girl said, brightening. "'Cause I just attacked you, I'll take you to the research building as payback. How does that sound?"

"That sounds fine," he replied automatically. _Wait, where were you going in the first place? Why were you leaving the academy if you were fine with just turning around and coming right back? What's more, she's kind of weird...her mood turned around as quickly as she did. Oh, well. At least I'm getting a free tour out of it, I guess._

As he followed the girl back across the bridge, her shoulder-length brown hair bouncing along behind her, he remembered one of the foundations of communication, things he knew by proxy but didn't often put into practice. "I'm Izuku," he told her, studying the sun as it sank into the sea.

"Ochako," she responded promptly, glancing back at him over her shoulder. "Sorry again for throwing you into the air like that."

"It's fine, really. You've already more than paid me back for it."

"Still, I…"

Ochako seemed unwilling to finish her sentence, and after a few more seconds of silence, he asked one of the questions on his mind. "You're a student, right? What kind of magic was that? I didn't feel any wind…"

For whatever reason, her shoulders and expression both went stiff. "I use Life magic," she told him, her tone robotic, rehearsed, as if she'd already said it dozens of times. "It's the only affinity I have."

_...Ah. That might explain a few things. Only having one affinity at a magic academy sounds like the key ingredient in a recipe for a poor social life,_ Izuku mused, knowing full well what it was like to be judged for something you couldn't at all help, and he felt a pang of sympathy for the girl now walking beside him. "You could be completely mundane and not have any affinities," he offered. "I don't."

"You what?"

From her tone, this was the last thing she'd been expecting, and Izuku almost laughed. "I don't have any affinities," he repeated. "I couldn't cast a spell to save my life, and my life energy circulates, but it doesn't do anything else."

"Wait, so you're not a Wielder?" Ochako asked, lips pursed. "But you're travelling with a sword anyway? That takes guts. I've read stories about Wielders who were bandits. You wouldn't stand a chance."

He actually did laugh this time. "That's kind of complicated. I don't really wanna go into detail, if that's okay, but it's related to why I came all the way to the academy."

"That's fine," she shrugged. "Everybody's got stuff they don't like telling other people about, and we just met, so it'd be kinda dumb for me to expect you to go spillin' your guts."

Silence fell between them once more, but to Izuku, it felt more comfortable now that the barrier of anonymity had shattered. _She seems reasonable._ he mused. _If I were staying here, I think I'd want to keep in touch, especially if she has to deal with people looking down on her for something she can't help._

As if it were reading his thoughts - and perhaps it was; it was definitely sentient - the sword hummed, and he heard it whisper into his mind for the third time.

_**This one…**_

Ochako shot him a sharp glance, and for a moment, he was afraid he'd actually said it aloud, or the sword had somehow spoken - but then she frowned and asked: "Did you hear a bug fly by just now?"

"No. Did you?"

She sighed, letting her shoulders slump as she faced the academy again. "I thought I did. I must be more tired than I realized."

He bit his lip and said nothing.

They drew stares upon entering the academy courtyard, or rather _Izuku_ drew stares, and it wasn't difficult to figure out why: a boy young enough to be a fellow student showing up with a greatsword was not, he imagined, a common occurrence here.

To her credit, Ochako didn't even spare the other students a glance, choosing instead to seize his hand and half-drag him along behind her as she strode for what he could only assume was the research department. Part of Izuku wanted to stop and sightsee, since the odds of him coming back here after this visit were slim to none, but he also didn't want to keep Ochako waiting while he blinked stupidly at the towering stone roofs and ancient, gnarled trees that dotted the academy campus. Here and there, fat grey pigeons pecked at the grass or sat atop any ledges they could find, and more than once, he made eye contact with one and hastily looked away.

"Can anyone really just walk in here whenever they want?" he asked her, as they entered a building that vaguely resembled the Eolas library both inside and out.

"More or less," Ochako said, leading him past the front desk and into the maze of dusty bookshelves until an oak staircase sprung up out of seemingly nowhere before them. "There are eyes pretty much everywhere, though. They _say_ they don't watch us in our rooms, but sometimes I have to wonder…"

"Watch?" Izuku repeated. "What kind of magic lets you watch people?"

"I learned in one of my classes that some really skilled Life mages can actually see through the eyes of an animal if they're able to tap into its life energy," she explained, sounding like a proper schoolgirl now. "My magic falls a little closer to direct manipulation, like healing, but I might be able to do something like that if I have enough time to practice…you saw the pigeons sitting on the roof when we came in, right?"

"What about them?" he asked, though he could already guess what was coming.

"Well, they're not just there for show. The guy across the hall from me always covers the bathroom windows in ice when he's in there so they don't see him peeing. He's...kind of weird. Actually, he's the reason you 'n' me even ran into each other - he stole all the spices from the dormitory kitchen, so…"

_So who was watching me, then?_

He tried his best to listen to her rambling - he really did - but in the end he simply couldn't keep up, falling back on the tried-and-true strategy of nodding whenever she paused and mumbling his agreement whenever he picked up on an upward inflection in her tone. On the inside, however, his mind raced, nervous at the prospect of learning more about the sword that had taken him from his home and family.

At what he assumed was the fourth floor, the two of them stumped through a doorway into a something like a reception room, dark-blue carpet covering the entire floor and dust covering the entire carpet. To their left, a robed man sat behind a polished oak desk, nose buried in a book, and it wasn't until Ochako cleared her throat that he even noticed they were there.

"Uraraka," he greeted her. His voice was strong, deep, and as his gaze shifted from Ochako to Izuku, his eyes narrowed. "Who might this be? You aren't a student. If you've come for weapon arts," he added, nodding at the sword, "you're at the wrong academy."

"No, I'm here for an artifact appraisal," he replied, deciding to get straight to the point. "A smith in Eolas directed me here after I asked him to fix up this sword." He reached back over his shoulder for the sword again, and while Ochako didn't attack him this time, she definitely flinched, causing the robed man's lips to pull into a tight frown of disapproval. It wasn't until the sword was in his hands that the frown vanished, only to be replaced with something closer to anxiety than either curiosity or surprise.

"Young man," the mage asked him, "where did you find this?"

Izuku could already tell how the man would reply, and he sighed before answering honestly. "In the Críoch," he said, voice and gaze both as level as he could manage. "Please don't try to swing it. It will break your arms."

"A sword from the Críoch that injures those who wield it?" The other sounded skeptical, but he heeded Izuku's advice; he'd seen too many of his fellows injured or even killed by artifacts they'd ridiculed as absurd or impossible. "How did you figure this property out?"

"It's...a little hard to explain." _How am I supposed to explain that it tore off the arms of the last person who tried to use it, but it lets _me _do whatever I want?_

"I'll hear it. Take your time."

It struck Izuku then that the more information the mages had, the more they could likely tell him about the sword, so he resigned himself to explaining exactly that property.

"Someone tried to take it from me and now she has no arms," he said, as bluntly as possible. "I can use it, but I don't think anyone else can."

The mage's face scrunched up. "A sword that only one person can use? Is there anything special about it, or is it just cursed?"

_Shit._ Izuku bit his lip; on the one hand, the sword's special ability wasn't something he'd ever heard of before he laid his hands on it, and Neamhath had been the only person so far to know anything about it..._but if it's in a book,_ he reasoned, _this place should have some kind of documentation on it, right?_

"It lets me use weapon arts."

"Can't any old sword do that?" Ochako cut in, frowning, but Izuku shook his head.

"Did you already forget what I told you on the bridge?" he asked her.

She paused for a moment, placing a finger to her lips, then her eyes shot open wide as saucers and she blurted out: "You don't have any affinities!"

"Yeah." Turning back to the mage, he elaborated: "I _can't_ use weapon arts, but this sword lets me use arts from _any_ school."

"So, let me get this straight," the mage said. "You found this sword in the Críoch and just happened to be the only one who can use it?"

"The only person I've met so far," Izuku shrugged. "I'm not really looking to test it on anyone else. Most people like having their arms attached, anyway."

"And it lets you, someone with no affinities whatsoever, use _any_ school of life-force manifestation?"

"Uh...yeah. That's the gist of it."

The mage stared long and hard at the sword, and for several long seconds, the room was silent save for the fluttering of a pigeon on the windowsill at the outer wall. Then -

"Well? Is it somethin' you guys know anything about?" Ochako prodded, rocking back and forth on her heels with her hands behind her back. "Is it special?"

"It's definitely special," the mage admitted, swallowing hard. "Let's - I'll just - young man, what's your name?"

"Ah - Izuku. Izuku Midoriya."

"Sir Midoriya - I'm going to have to take this into the back for the rest of our researchers to perform some tests on it. Is that okay with you?" For whatever reason, the man's attitude had taken a turn for the respectful - not that Izuku was complaining, but it was definitely strange. Worried but spurred onward by the curiosity burning ever stronger in his gut, he agreed, and the mage hurried from the room, disappearing through a door that Izuku was fairly certain hadn't been there several seconds prior.

The moment the door closed, Ochako spoke up.

"I feel sorry for you."

Surprised, Izuku glanced sidelong at her, pursing his lips, and she looked away. "Why?" he asked.

"Just...the research department doesn't always get a lot done when something's important," she shrugged. He turned at the waist to look her in the eye, but she continued avoiding his gaze, staring down at the carpet. Expression unreadable, she went on: "I dunno what that sword is, but you might be stuck here a while if that guy's reaction to it means anything."

He shrugged. "It's nothing I'm not used to. People with power don't seem to do anything good with it a lot of the time. What I'm wondering is...why didn't they ask me to demonstrate any arts?" he added, more to himself than Ochako. "That Healer asked me to…"

The door opened again, and a different mage came out, a woman in her late twenties or early thirties carrying something shiny in her palm. She held it out to Izuku, who let her drop it into his open palm.

"What do I need a key for?" he asked, but before she could answer, Ochako jumped in, whipping an identical key out of her pocket.

"That's a dorm key," she told him, biting her lip and glancing up at the woman. "Hey, why're you givin' him one?"

"Sir Midoriya, we're going to need a few days to look into your sword more carefully," the other informed him, ignoring Ochako entirely. "Please have Miss Uraraka take you to the single-bedroom dormitories. Your room for the time being will be 203. If you need anything, Miss Uraraka will help you with it." Her eyes glinted, dangerously, and Ochako swallowed hard; clearly, whoever this woman was, she held some sway over the girl.

"R-right. Uh, Midorba, right?" Ochako asked, pointing at him with both index fingers. A worried half-smile spread across her face, and he sighed, shaking his head again.

"It's Midoriya. Please just call me Izuku."

* * *

The room he'd been given was mostly clean save for the thick layer of dust coating every visible surface, and he and Ochako (whose room, 202, was directly across the hall) spent about an hour dusting before it was even remotely clean. He dropped his limited belongings on the bed, relieved that the money he'd been given for protecting the caravan wouldn't have to be spent on lodging, and paid as much attention as his increasingly-tired mind could manage as Ochako explained the basics of dormitory life.

"...And that's why you should never leave food out uncovered," she finished, actually out of breath from talking. "On the bright side, Todoroki was able to make them into mouse kebabs."

Izuku, no stranger to rodents (nor eating them) himself, nodded sagely. "Mice are best kebabed," he declared, having never eaten a kebabed mouse. In all honesty, he'd never eaten a mouse at all, only squirrels from the woods, but it was painfully clear that the poor girl didn't have anyone else to talk to, and as a loner himself, he could sympathize. Her chatter was even starting to grow on him, and the smile on her face when she realized someone was actually _talking_ to her almost brought out one of his own; he could feel it tugging at the corners of his lips when she looked at him. "But have you ever had rabbit?"

"No! I can't even imagine eating a bunny!" Ochako seemed shocked, and Izuku could understand why: rabbits were cute, and the few times he'd shot one with a bow and arrow, its dying screams had been nothing short of heartrending. "Is...is it any good?"

_Okay, so not too shocked to not be hungry._ "It's decent. A little greasy, I think, but fresh rabbit is pretty light. They're better around this time of year, when they're putting on weight for the winter," he told her. "You guys don't have a spit roast, do you?"

"Don't tell me you're thinking of killing one of the bunnies on campus."

"No, of course not. I'll hunt one down in the woods around town."

"That's not any better!"

After he'd gotten settled, they stayed up a while, talking about pretty much anything that crossed their minds; to his delight, Ochako was an avid reader, and they'd even read a few of the same popular books. She pitched recommendation after recommendation at the literature-starved Izuku, who - lacking a quill or pencil - knew he'd forget most of them, but he appreciated the conversation nonetheless, etching a few of the more interesting titles into his memory: _The Áit Dearmadh Kelpie, Branches for Aíscasch, Eggs and How to Make Them Pay._ She even lent him a particularly strange tome etched with a symbol of an eye, which turned out to be the thrilling autobiography of a highly skilled but highly voyeuristic Life mage with a fascination for watching people do laundry through the eyes of waterfowl.

After Ochako went to bed, Izuku read a while; the book wasn't _entirely_ about using ducks to watch linens dry, but that was about forty percent of it, spread evenly between exponentially more interesting tales. It wasn't until the writer had started to describe the sensation of swimming a kilometer under the sea that he'd felt through a whale that his eyelids began to droop, and with a heavy heart, he placed the book on the nightstand, snuffing out the candle he'd been reading by and laying back on his pillow with a long, slow sigh.

_I'll take it easy for a couple of days,_ he decided. _Once they give the sword back, I can decide what to do from there._

Outside, a pigeon cooed.


End file.
